Across the Universe
by 00000009
Summary: A sequel (and really a prequel) to Heart Break Hotel. There was a crack in the joy of the allied Kingdoms. Visions of destruction plagued priestesses. Chaos. Darkness. The events to come would begin with the birth of seven women – seven girls – from seven Kingdoms. The eldest of these, the first to be born and to herald the coming darkness would be the daughter of Uranus.
1. Chapter 1

_Come. Come to me now. Sshhh, shh, it's okay._

 _C'mon, on my lap. Okay. It's okay. It will be – you're so cold! How long have you been waiting?_

 _Don't worry. Doesn't matter. C'mon. We just have to wait now. Together. They'll tell us something when they can. Nothing we can do. No, not even you._

 _Some things we mustn't interfere with._

 _Yes._

 _Even when it's them._

 _Just have to wait. We'll watch each other, okay?_

 _How about a story?_

 _Okay?_

 _The first one. Their first one._

 _Yes, I know. I'm making an exception. It's a bit foggy now, but it's a good story._

 _Come. Sit calmly. That's good. It's okay._

The whisper was insistent. It escaped lips and trailed through the palace halls quiet and certain as the swishing of velvet robes on marble floors. The whisper told the rumour, the rumour came from the prophecy, and the mention of the prophecy had been forbidden in the Kingdom of the seventh planet. The King, renowned for both military genius and unmatched swordsmanship, had made the threat personally. Any found spreading gossip and nonsense of this particular quality would meet with the penalty of death!

But we all know gossip is far too irresistible. Anyway, the kingdom was too preoccupied to fulfil such a promise. So the rumour – or the prophecy – continued. It was not limited to that Kingdom, but indeed stretched to the known solar system. From – as we call them now – to the scholars of Mercury to the watchers of Pluto. Dearest Pluto. Such names did not exist then, nor such language as we have now, those languages are long gone.

Our cultures.

Our people.

But then they were vibrant; alive and evolving! All part of the story of where we belong. But it was there, the seventh planet, the one now called Uranus, where the prophecy was most on the minds and tongues of the population. The prophecy – one that had plagued the dreams of the King – was this:

There was a crack in the joy of the allied Kingdoms. In time, a time now felt to be imminent, an impossible force of dark energy would surge over our worlds. The horror of the visions, the cruelty and impenetrability of these forces had overwhelmed soothsayers, leading some to faint when conjuring apparitions. Priestesses of Mars told of thick advancing armies. The philosophers of Neptune spoke of hollow men, of faceless, faultless warriors that would fight beyond reason; there would be no mercy. No prisoners. The detail of these premonitions changed, but some things were certain; there was not dream of life beyond. Not a glimmer. But what was more pressing, what concerned the citizenry most of all, was that the series of events began with the birth of seven women – seven girls – from seven Kingdoms baring a blazing symbol on their foreheads. The eldest of these, the first to be born and to herald the coming darkness would be the daughter of Uranus.

The Queen was pregnant.

The population was uneasy.

If it was this daughter to bring on the misery of worlds, then the solution must be to eradicate – even if it _was_ a royal child – the infant? Think of all the others who might be lost. There were other royal heirs, well loved, well presented and certainly without any demarcation of destruction.

These seven daughters were destined to be the soldiers protecting our worlds. And they were destined to fail. This daughter spelt nothing but ruin.

The King refused to hear such stories. He had bloodied the noses of several advisers in recent weeks. He was a master of war. But he was also a papa.

You know how those can be.

It was early in Earth's calendar when she arrived. She screamed. The King and queen cried. The midwife smiled. Then she stopped. She thrust the baby into the arms of the King and rushed from the room clasping a charm hung from her neck, chanting under her breath.

The King looked down into the light of the symbol shining from his child's forehead. Horror creased his handsome brow. For a moment he felt he might drop her. His wife whimpered, clasping the blood-stained sheets, equally enraptured.

"Please," she whispered, "let me have her?"

As she spoke it, he knew she meant it in two ways. He knew too, all things occurring as predicted, they would not have her long. She may live in stories, in legend even, but she would never grow old.

The baby looked up and screamed no longer. Perhaps she understood the importance of the blurry head above her.

"Until she is three," he said, returning the bundle to the arms of his wife, "then she is old enough to begin training. I will take her then."

"But her brothers and sister, they will…"

"They should never meet." He said.

The queen said nothing, but looked as though her world had already ended.

"There is no need to upset them." The King said.

"But they already know –"

"Tell them she was born sleeping."

The baby kicked. She was not destined to be a heavy sleeper.

She was given a name I can no longer remember, in a language never recorded, but for now we might adopt the rough translation of 'Haruka.'

The queen remained away from public scrutiny in the early days. Attention seemed to settle. The midwife was wise enough to keep the truth secreted in her mind and her head attached to her neck. Perhaps, the people thought, the King had seen reason and dealt with the problem swiftly. There was no baby in sight. The whispers drifted away.

The baby, as the royal couple discovered, was taking on her father's looks. More so than her siblings ever had. It was a discovery that impressed and alarmed the King. She had his same eyes, curious and quick. She had his colouring; would likely have the same head of hair that impressed a great number of women (and several men!) of the court. The queen, unquestionably, was pretty. Her elder children were equally so, in a quiet and gentle way. They made up lovely portraits and were frequently cooed over by visitors, but the King had a look of his own. It may have been the athleticism that developed with prowess in battle. It may have been his lack of thought for his striking profile, his vibrant eyes, his confident posture. He had married into the royal family as the former King's most talented general. Some considered it had been a tactical move, but then again, they seemed happy. They were generally. But the new baby remained a source of anxiety.

Then the daughter of Neptune was born. The symbol shone. The neighbouring Kingdom had no qualms about making the announcement. Their people regarded it a blessing, not a curse. Their hope. Not so on the seventh Kingdom. The whispered worries boiled up into a hissing, a groaning a howling of betrayal! The prophecy was no rumour – and somewhere _somewhere_ – the first child must have been secreted away! The queen was immediately tucked and locked away into an uninhabited corner of the palace. She remained there for days. Guards were stationed at all entry points. The baby did not cry.

The King paced. He was losing sleep. He was losing the trust of his people. He needed to speak. It would not wait.

"Uranians!" He called out. An assembly of thousands had been gathered next morning for the news. He was no aristocrat. He knew when to talk to the public directly.

"It has been foretold, and it is so. There is a daughter!"

A wave of hissing, groaning, howling despair passed across the crowd. It gained volume and momentum like a firestorm as one after another recognised that their descent could not be trampled.

The King waited, hands behind his back, for the collective voice to reach its zenith.

"Uranians!" Several moments more and the voice had reduced enough that he was audible. "We do not fold before challenge. We do not try to outwit the fates. No!"

The crowd remained unconvinced.

"Kill it!" A call came.

The King turned. The assembly was silenced.

"And what, friend?" Said the King in a low voice, "Would you have us kill the children of Neptune? Of our allies in Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury? The future princess of the moon? Would your solution be to slaughter these too?"

The possessor of the lone voice cowered. The King turned his attention away.

"These children are to defend us. My child will defend us. I know because I will train her myself. She will be spared no drill. She will be the pride of the Uranian army, the greatest fighter this world has ever seen! This is my solemn pledge."

The tide of voices seemed to turn at this. The King's own intervention? Who better than he?

"It is We! We of the seventh planet who have the finest military!"

The crowd called back in recognition.

"Whose stories send foes shaking?"

"Ours!

"Whose army stops for none?"

"Ours!"

"Whose victory will it be?"

"Ours!"

"And who then brings the storm?"

"We are the storm!"

Meanwhile the queen had made up her own mind to take action. In her room was a long gold edged mirror. A portal none had considered. You see, at that time, communication could be made through the use of magic and mirrors. It wasn't viewed with the same suspicion as today. Those trained in the art, as nobles tended to be, were able to make use of incantations to access the image and voice of those many, many lightyears apart.

Yes, I suppose it was like Skype. But with better line quality.

Through the mirror the queen had contacted the mother of the new child of Neptune. She wasn't the queen, or not the _only_ queen – not quite. The Neptunian family structure was rather more… complex. Philosophers. Polyamory. That is really a story for another time. When you're older.

The new child was given a name I can no longer remember, in a language never recorded, but for now we might adopt the rough translation of 'Michiru.'

The mothers of Neptune and Uranus held up to the mirrored surfaces their infants to be inspected.

"She is so small!" exclaimed the latter.

"She is. And quiet. Your little girl will look like her father I think. But lovely."

"They are both lovely."

"I am sorry for your troubles. Your confinement."

"It will be well. I feel your example, and that of your people, will help us. Presently my husband speaks to an assembly. He tends to charm."

"So I have heard."

The daughter of Neptune chirruped and stretched out a sleepy arm. It touched the mirrors surface sending shivering ripples.

"My! Will you be a talented diviner I wonder?" said her mother.

The daughter of Uranus cooed and kicked out a foot. The symbol on her forehead appeared again.

"Is that your friend?" Her mother asked.

"This little one is glowing!" Said the woman across the glass. "Do you think it is safe? I know they are not meant to meet, but I thought through this distance."

"I'm sure it's quite fine." Spoke the queen of Uranus a little quickly. She had had rather enough of predictions. "Look at them. I just can't see them causing any damage. Certainly not now."

"Nor can I. This feels a reasonable distance."

"I miss seeing you."

"I know."

"Say goodbye, Haruka, say bye-bye to your friend. We'll try see her again."

"In secret is best?"

"It may be the only way."


	2. Chapter 2

_A coma? It's like a sleep. Like being in a long dream. It's just people don't always… stop dreaming. Or, when they wake sometimes – especially when there's been an accident with… - sometimes people don't wake up the same. You understand? Sometimes we need to be ready for changes._

 _But the doctors said we would be allowed to see her. Tomorrow we'll be allowed. Do you know why? They found a card in her wallet. Next of kin. You're there. And your mama. Written next to "Daughter" and "Spouse." I suppose neither of those things are quite true. We're more than that, aren't we?_

 _Yes, I was there too._

 _Guess._

 _No, not aunt. Not even "sister-in-law". Can you believe "Grandma!?" You think that's funny? I suppose it's a pretty good joke for someone who can't open their eyes!_

 _Even when she's like this!_

 _I wonder who she'll be if she…_

 _If either of them…_

 _We'll just have to wait. Okay?_

X

Neptune's youngest princess was approaching her 3rd birthday. Though her motor skills were still developing, her vocal skills were rather advanced. She spent a lot of time parroting the mantras of elders. A three year old thing. She would wriggle her way into chant circles and give her best impression of a proper lady. With legs crossed at the ankles, hands on her knees, and head raised she sang more than spoke. At times quite accurately; at others:

"I pray to fortune: keep my life"

" _I pray to fourteen not to five."_

"This is my most solemn wish"

" _Thisis my moist salmon fish."_

The Queen's assistants tended to fight over the work allocation to mind her during the day. She always sat perfectly still to have her hair brushed and loved mirrors. In only a few years she had been sent a lifetime's supply of fine clothing and elegant gifts from across the Kingdom and beyond. Items entirely too extravagant and delicate for a small child. In short, she had won the hearts of the kingdom, before being able to realise the importance of such an advantage. For now her main concern had to be school.

The philosophers of Neptune studied within a hierarchy known as the order of Galatea. This involved both a physical and theoretical arrangement akin to a nautilus shell. The school, hosted in the tower of Galatea, was once a phenomenal feat of architecture. Its white surface, visible from great distances, was an attraction that any visitor to Neptune prioritised.

Neptunian philosophy involved a lifetime of learning. Peacemakers were most likely to hold positions of significance within the governing body known as The Authority. War was considered a failure. In the climate of anticipated conflict Neptune was nonetheless considered a powerful ally for offering new insights into the use of energy streams. We think of levitation as mystical today, but once upon a time it was quite commonplace. Scholars learnt to move substances without touch. They'd manipulate earth or water for work, for fun, sometimes even in artistic displays.

But that is getting ahead of ourselves.

The newest students began on the top floor of the tower. The highest levels were populated by those seeking to develop in one of several streams of philosophical study. The structure as a whole was funnel-shaped; broadest at the top and narrowing where it met the surface - then penetrated it - moving into subterranean chambers where The Authority was based. Students worked their way down, from light and energy to silence and contemplation. Some suggested the design was simply a method to keep noisy youth from bothering senior advisers. That was probably true too.

Michiru had already been assigned the route of the diviner and was progressing rapidly. Given her future responsibilities, The Authority had decided it best to avail her of the wisdom of senior practitioners as soon as possible. Divining at her age involved mastery of the 3 fundamentals: connection, projection and teleportation. She was given a silver mirror to begin. Its frame was studded with a galaxy of diamonds, the purpose of this was to aid in focus; to help new diviners in the art of concentration. In other words, not to get distracted by shiny things.

Lessons in connection involved the transmission of thoughts. Beginners would learn to communicate simple concepts to a fellow student in another room. There was often a lot of rushing around corners (with the occasional bloodied nose) to confirm "Red" or "Green" with classmates, or, as Michiru had started, "Morning Sky Blue," or "Clear-y-fuzzy-glass-White."

The Authority was pleased.

Her mother found it all somewhat overwhelming, but there seemed no damage done. She would fetch her daughter after class most days and take her back to the palace beyond the fussing and questions of the enthusiastic public.

"We're going to wish your friend a happy birthday today, Okay?" asked her mother.

"'Kay."

"We'll use the secret mirror."

"Can you help?"

"Of course. I'll do this one. You're still learning."

"Mm. Show me?"

"I'll show you."

The room in which this particular divining occurred was one of the rare places not in common use. The queen kept it free for mediation and, once a season, to bridge the gap to communicate with her counterpart in Uranus.

The queen bowed her head, closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. Her daughter tried the same, but found it hard to stop sneaking a look. The space became heated. It took long, long minutes until the air became suffocatingly thick; hotter and tighter until it seemed like molten treacle in the lungs and - there was a ripple across the mirror's surface. The corresponding image spread into a new one and a rush of cool air entered the room once more.

They could breathe.

Connection.

"Why, hello," said the queen of Neptune, "I hear someone's having their birthday today?"

"It's good to see you." The someone's mother answered instead.

The blonde girl in the mirror's surface looked out pensively from her mother's robes. The mirror was still a source of curiosity. After a moment's hesitation, she called out "I'm free," holding out 3 fingers, and dramatically buried her face again.

"Sorry," said the queen of Uranus, "but that's probably the most she will say today. We had the ring ceremony. I'm not sure it's the best when they're so young – "

"The ceremony? I thought that was left until…?"

"Time is short."

"Yes. Too short." The woman from Neptune sighed. Her daughter was preoccupied with adding fingerprints to the mirror's surface. "Did you have a big day, Haruka?"

The face appeared again, touching at a red-looking earlobe pierced with an oversized gold crescent. Probably painful.

"What's that?" She tried again.

"I got a owwing." She sent a look of betrayal up towards her mother. "I don't want it."

"It's called an earing. _Ear_ -Ring," her mother said.

"Don't want a _ow_ wing." She pointed at her head.

"Oh, but it looks _very brave_." Said the woman from across the glass.

"Huh?"

"Like a _real_ soldier."

"OK. I got a soldier haircut." She sniffed, turned back to her mother.

There was a sudden crash in the background. Haruka jumped up, mood forgotten.

"Hey! It's Wok! Come Wocky!" She clapped her hands as a gigantic white dog bounded into view. The mirror's surface shimmered with the force of his arrival. It was perhaps as much fur as it was dog.

"Last year's birthday present grew up?" Asked the queen from Neptune.

"Mm hmm. Rocky has shaken off his runt status. He kept his name, I'm afraid.

"He's amazing!"

"He is… ever-present."

"Oh, the rest of the litter, they're sledding dogs?"

"Sledding and hunting. Titan. Oberon. Stephano… "Rocky" keeps this one entertained. They seem to tire each other out."

"And will he be going with – "

"Oh Beas!" Michiru called hitting the mirror where the dog turned, at once confused and excited.

"A beast, that's right," Her mother said, "that one's called Rocky."

"Beeees!"

"This my pup, Wok, OK?" Haruka said seriously, laying a possessive arm around the dog's neck. Rocky continued to look around as though the air was whispering.

"OK." Michiru said more quietly, padding her hands closer to the creature.

He licked the surface. She shrieked with laughter.

"Slime!"

Haruka giggled. "You slimed that girl! G'boy, Wok!"

Just then there was a heavy knock at the door. They fell silent. Haruka put her hand over Rocky's snout. Rocky licked it and barked.

Michiru whispered to her mother "Their hearts go fast."

"Haruka!" A man's voice. The kind one doesn't argue with. "Come now, it's time to go."

The girl looked panicked.

"More owring?" She whispered to her mother, who looked similarly alarmed.

"Now more earrings, OK, it'll be OK. You're brave and strong and three."

"OK."

"Say good-bye to your friend, Michiru."

"OK bye Frenchiru."

"Bye-bye. Bye slime beas."

As the mirror rippled back the snickered words trailed off into the distance "That girl said slime beast…!"

X

Three young to begin Uranian military study. Some considered Twenty three too young.

You were all too young, really.

Haruka was allowed to keep her dog. That was the beginning and end of any concession by the King. He had begun learning as a boy. He knew the challenge. He never lost a challenge.

Sound familiar?

Haruka was separated that day from life at the palace to commence study in a more monastic setting. The room she would call home for the next few years in had a stone floor, a mattress and, that first night, a glass of water. She would learn to acclimatise to sleeping in a temperature just above freezing. It was fortunate she had her dog as company. She struggled against her father at first.

"Do you know why you are here?"

"'Cos you didn't killed me!?"

"I'm not your problem."

"Are so!"

"I'm leaving. I will be back in the morning."

That morning was two days later. The Queen wept herself to sleep. The King didn't sleep. He leafed through old texts. He polished weaponry. He told and retold himself this was how it had to be. Soldiers weren't born, they were forged. That was the way of the warrior; that was the way to victory. He was still a young man with all the stubborn self-determination that comes with youth. He truly believed this was the best method to prepare. Life would take its toll. Knowledge – first-hand knowledge – of such trials had been his way of conquering battles before they occurred.

"Do you know why you are here?" He asked when he returned.

"I have to." She whispered from the corner.

He knelt down and swallowed back his sense of awfulness at noticing the water in her glass remained almost untouched.

"Drink, Haruka."

"Saving it for Wok." She croaked back. "I need him, OK?"

"OK. We'll look after him."

"No, I! Me!"

"Yes, you can look after him." The King looked over to the sleeping dog. "I'll get his bowl now."

"Get him food."

"Then we have lessons. Drink first, OK?"

"OK."

"It is good to reserve your resources. Soldiers must plan for adverse conditions."

"OK. Reverse conditions."

"No, _ad_ verse. Like bad things."

" _You_ plan bad things."

"I'll get you breakfast."

"Yuck."

We all begin somewhere. Even when returning in new lives it is hard to shake the struggles of our parents.

Epigenetics? Yes, I suppose, something like that.

How did you get so clever?

The children of Uranus were praised most highly for swordsmanship, for endurance and physical talent in combat. There was certainly something beautiful to behold in the military displays presented at royal events; the cobalt and gold breastplates; the striking fortitude on the faces of young men and women; the faultless unison in turns and salutes. There can also be terrible cruelty in attaining such precision. Always a cost. Haruka would never be involved in such parading. It wasn't safe for her to be in the public eye.

"The way of the soldier is to be sufficient by himself." Said her father. "Wars are won and lost with the right actions by the right man."

"Not a man," said Haruka.

"That doesn't matter."

"Nothing matters."

"This is grown up training. You need to act like a grown-up." He sighed. "It's true. Many things don't matter. But you do. We're teaching you to be someone that matters. OK?"

"OK. Wok matters too."

"OK."

"That's everyone."


	3. Chapter 3

_She looks so peaceful. No, I don't like the bandages either. Don't like the tubes. The monitor. I don't like any of it. Why does she have to drive so fast?_

 _I'm sorry._

 _Sorry._

 _That wasn't it._

 _The road was narrow. The truck lost control. If she hadn't swerved to avoid it, I don't think we'd even…_

 _Better not to think that way._

 _Yes, you can touch her hand, Hime-chan. You can't heal her. I can't. As much as I may want to turn back time… I just can't. Some things belong in the story of the world._

 _Does that make sense?_

 _I suppose making sense doesn't always help._

 _I think that if they… wherever they end up, this life of the next, they will find each other. If they can do that. Maybe that will be enough. Maybe I can forgive… whoever makes these choices._

 _What's that?_

 _Yes, you're right. Yes, I'll ask the doctors. They should be kept in the same room._

 _Shall we say good-bye?_

 _No?_

 _How about see you later?_

 _Yes, we'll come back tomorrow._

 _Come, it's okay._

 _I still have a story to tell you._

xxx

The soothsayers were murmuring again. It interested the Authority in Neptune and served to give a headache to the King of Uranus.

"Foolishness and wastefulness!" He growled. "At a time like this they are insisting on storybook endings? We're on the brink of war!"

His gathered advisors stole apprehensive looks across the table. Care was needed to curb a niggle growing into a full blown rage.

"Your Highness, we need their assistance in weapon development." Began the boldest, an older member with little to lose in hair or lifespan. "Your son is of age. It matters little to us, but a great deal to them."

"You say my _son_ matters little?"

"Of course not. No. The wedding. The expense is minor. Consider it a strategic move."

"If we move on this, then what next? I cannot understand why this is so – why they take so seriously the mumbo jumbo of – what is this prophecy?"

The silence was heavy.

Another member, more junior, oppressed by the airlessness of the room picked up the letter and read from it.

"It is anticipated and confirmed amongst many of our highest order – "

"Highest kites!" The King interjected.

" - Highest order," the advisor continued, "that there will be a coupling from the royal families of Uranus and Neptune – that this pair will bring great prosperity, a fullness of bond that will transcend many lifetimes," the advisor swallowed. "Their love –"

"Gah!"

"Their love will be one that is treasured for generations beyond imagining. Their story will live on, will be a symbol of hope from our kingdoms. One that no war can erase."

"My son is sixteen." Said the King. "I would be astounded if his "love" lasts more than ten minutes, let alone unimaginable generations!"

A nervous laugh rippled across the congregation.

"Your Majesty, to raise our chances of success against foretold enemies we require strengths not yet developed. Neptunian innovation in weaponry is incomparable. This would be a minor concession if-"

"Yes, if!" The King countered, " _If_ they are able to come up with some miraculous solution. If they are the key to saving us all. If we are to believe that these people who follows whimsical stories-"

"We must believe." Said the youngest member quietly.

"We – what?" the king spat.

The man blinked. He didn't meet the inquiring gazes that shot from every angle. "A war is lost before it begins when we do not believe."

"Hm." Said the King, who was inclined to enjoy his own words repeated on the lips of others. "Let it be so. Send gifts to the girl. Who is it?"

"Yet unknown."

"What!?"

"There is some disagreement amongst the elders."

"So what do the eldest of these elders say?"

"They believe a princess, still a child, will be their representative. The daughter bearing the symbol on her head."

"She? She is yet an _infant_ \- younger than my – "

The King stopped short.

He rubbed his hand over his face and cursed into his palm. "Has she not an elder sister so that we might finalise this arrangement with more haste?"

"We can make enquiries, your highness."

"Then please do."

XXX

Michiru's mother reclined upon a divan, head propped on her hand, and watched her four year old, crossed-legged on the floor, mumbling earnestly at a hand mirror.

"How could you ever be betrothed?" Asked the woman. "How could you dare grow up?"

Her daughter, hearing the attention in her direction, looked over impishly.

"Mama, how do I move through?"

"Move through? You mean teleport? Oh, that's a long, long way away. That's a trick to learn when you're very old."

"I'm old now."

"Yes, but not _very_ old."

"Hmm." She looked down at the mirror. "I don't get very old." She climbed up onto the sofa and into her mother's arms.

"Come, don't be silly. Why would you say that?"

"Don't worry."

"Oh, you're going to have a wonderful life. A _long_ and wonderful life. You're going to do your school."

"Yup."

"You're going to become tall and strong."

"Yup."

"You're going to learn great powerful things."

"Yup."

"And one day you will get married and have children too. And they –"

"Nope."

"No?"

"I don't do that."

"You don't want to get married?"

"I don't do it."

"You don't have to."

"I can't be old enough."

"What do you mean?"

Her daughter sighed and stroked her cheek. "I learn things. I get tall. I fight. That's it."

"Silly. You can't predict the future." Her mother said.

"OK." Said her daughter. "Don't worry."

XXX

"Back straight, please!"

The five year old's arms tremored. She carried a thick wooden bar across her shoulders balancing stone weights on either end.

"It's heavy!"

"It's supposed to be heavy."

"Nngh…"

"Form, Haruka!"

"This is dumb!"

"That's it, I'm adding another weight."

"I hate you."

"Sir."

"Nn…What?"

"It's 'I hate you, _Sir'_ when you address me."

"Fine."

"Excuse me?"

"Fine! Sir!"

"Better. We're still adding weights. A soldier wears the heaviest armour as though it is his own skin. This is the way to move though the battle field with grace."

The King, carrying his own bar by way of example strode across and towards the hill in the distance. He may have been whistling. The air was cool, but the weather was fine.

"Rocky's… getting…in my…way…Sir."

"The way of the soldier is to move around obstacles as though they are nothing more than shade."

The dog barked and lolloped around his owner who, from his perspective, must have discovered the joys of fetching sticks. Such a fine game!

"Quit your shade, Rock."

"Soldiers don't mutter." Called the King.

"Quit making up what soldiers do!"

By this time in her life Haruka had grown accustomed to day-long treks, usually unaccompanied. There would be a task set, for instance retrieving a manuscript or delivering a tool to another village. She would receive directions, a knife, water, and a weighted down pack. Each item had to be returned as given. A soldier conserved water. In her present set of clothes the risk of appearing as a member of the royal family was remote. The incentive was simple, without achieving her goal neither she, nor her hound would be fed that night. She had long discovered that 'the way of the soldier' was not compatible with 'the diet of air'.

She didn't fail in her quests.

That day the King had been in good spirits. His routine had developed to include frequent week-long training visits. Despite missing his family, the clear air and freedom from the war room eased his mind. He found something close to peace. He allowed his beard to grow shabby. The queen chastised him frequently for his appearance when he returned.

Upon reaching the crest of the hill, Haruka, bar and weights collapsed in a clatter.

The King turned with a warning look.

"A soldier needs breaks, Sir."

The King laughed. "We will be visiting a town today. It is time you engaged with the citizens as yourself. A soldier must win the hearts and minds of his comrades."

"They hate me."

"You have to change that."

"Ugh."

Whether the King later regretted his choice that day is hard to know. The stories that filter through don't always reveal the inner conflicts of men's minds.

The town was only two hours on horseback. Haruka had been washed and dressed in a fine soldier's tunic. Around her neck she bore the unmistakable symbol of the royal family; a disc of sapphire and gold. She tried not to hold on to her father's back as he rode at a great pace over rock studded earth and through forests of branches with long, dark needles. There was a certain scent in the air, a feeling of unease about this place. She felt it even before it became clear.

It was a poor town. Deprived. The vision of slow-moving, hard-faced people chilled her. Not like the villages she had passed through at all. The sounds of the horse's hooves seemed to echo. There were no lively conversations. No laughter. No energy left to expend it seemed. She couldn't see or hear any children. There was a smell of something burning, something sour. An old woman looked up at them and spat on the ground. The King dismounted his horse. Narrowed his eyes. The woman scuttled away into a stone house.

Haruka scrambled to the ground too. She was wary of her father's horse. It liked him too much. There were a lot of dark patches on the ground. She wanted to ask what was wrong with the feeling there, but didn't know the right words. She kept her head up and tried a nervous smile as they walked through. She was glad Rocky had been left at home. Men were working at something with a large hammer. The jarring clang twitched her spine. It stopped as they approached. One man shook his head and walked away. The other remained. Leaned on his tool and stared at her as though she had stolen his dinner.

"What do you build?" She asked, still fake smiling.

The man kept staring, cleared his throat noisily, then began slowly. "I don't build. I _break_ things."

"Why?"

"… _Why?_ " He mocked in a raised pitch.

"Uh, why, sir?"

He laughed like he didn't find her funny. "Because we are waiting for a war. War!" He repeated, looking over to the King. "Nobody wins in wars, see. We give up all our metals. Everything! All our strength for a stinkin-"

There was a roar and clatter from behind them. Haruka froze. It was another man. Younger. Larger. He had emerged from the house the old woman has escaped to. He held an iron pan which he slammed against walls as he approached.

"Is that her? IS THAT HER!?" He continued, his voice hoarse with fury.

"You brought the spawn into our place? OUR HOME?!"

A soldier doesn't falter. A soldier must win over the…?

Haruka stepped forward.

"I'm training to be strong like you!"' she called to the man. She swallowed.

He stopped. His eyes were bulging. His chest expanded fast. Too fast.

"You?" He hissed. " _You?_ "

He dove forward. The King intercepted. It was all one fluid movement. A twisting leap. The shriek and gleam of his sword unsheathed. The connection. The return to earth. The King upon his feet; the man upon he ground.

Longer, much longer, was the sickening sound of gurgling blood. The King hoisted her back up onto the horse before she could cry out. She didn't hear the hammering hooves. In the distance the wail of the spitting old woman chased her. The same sound would reach her in dreams for the rest of her life. All the way home she held the bloody sword of her father. He didn't speak to her. Her tunic was stained with red. He was gone now, that angry man. Gone and gone forever. Because of her. She knew she had not acted with the grace or valour or strength of nobility that it took to lead anyone. Not a single, angry man. Not anyone.

"Sir? They hate me." She spoke to the King's back.

"Yes." He answered.


	4. Chapter 4

_I hear you've been bossing the nurses around._

 _No?_

 _OK. Sure, sure._

 _It was important that the drips and monitors be rearranged?_

 _That the beds be moved so that the doctors have a hard time performing their check-ups?_

 _You wanted them to hold hands?_

 _I see._

 _OK._

 _Yes, they are stable. Yes, but I'm not sure – don't pout._

 _Come on. I have a story with music in it._

 _Water music._

XXX

As she approached her seventh birthday, Michiru was already studying with classmates ten years her senior. Her mother was not always impressed by some of the habits she had acquired from such company. She had developed a premature version of teenage sass. It was possibly an attempt to fit in with kids who were wary of her uncanny gifts. Her ability to adopt and adapt new skills in connection and projection made her a constant source of competition.

And she had that strange glowing symbol.

She would never really fit in.

She wasn't meant to.

Out of sympathy, her mother wasn't too harsh in her reactions to requests for sophisticated jewellery "like the other girls"; her hair done up in a clasp of bronze "like the other girls"; her use of facial crème and lip lotion "like the other girls." There was a line drawn with the request for different undergarments.

"You don't need them yet, darling."

"But I'm dying." Said her daughter. "You're killing me. Literally."

"Not literally."

"I'm dressed like a baby!"

"Oh, but you're _my_ baby."

"Stop laughing!"

"Why don't we go to the baths?"

"Yeah, OK."

The daughters of Neptune enjoyed a particular private set of rock pools set deep in marble caves colloquially called The Chambers. It was a feat of nature and art. The rough surface of the cliff face gave way to an interior that stretched for close to a kilometre. Glow-worm-like creatures imitated a twinkling night sky. The first point of arrival was a concert arena. The rock there had been carved into a crescent of staged seating for a vast crowd. Phosphorescent vines twisted up the walls and framed the stage. From the arena there were pathways to several further, more private recreational spaces.

To say they were beautiful was an understatement.

Perhaps you've seen renaissance paintings of Olympus? Imagine those but, more serene. Perhaps one figure or two in an immense cavern lit by a ceiling chiselled to open to a starry sky. Think of gleaming tall pillars. Think of pools fed by natural falls, of turquoise water scattering light across the architecture. Think of vast walls carved with the histories of the great women. Young men had climbed and suffered near fatality in attempts to reach and take a sly look through the grates above. Men don't really change.

I entered once. It was a customary invitation to royal daughters who visited Neptune. There is something about that blue water. Something instantly and deeply soothing. Sounds echo and travel like calls from another world. The light is strange. It seemed to me a place set outside of time, or connected to all time. After a while your outlook alters. Like an enchantment. Those who spent long periods were rumoured to develop empathy for spirits; to sense the sadness of the ages.

They are gone now, of course. Crushed to rubble.

Water music was a form of recreation reserved for gifted practitioners. Within The Chambers, surrounded by an amphitheatre, was a series of tall pipes, in appearance similar to a large, ornate church organ. Before this instrument the musician would stand in water that typically came up to the knee. This Michiru did. She turned toward the audience consisting of her mother, closed her eyes, and raised her arms. She brought her palms together and bowed to acknowledge the spirit of the water, of the air, of those she could not sense yet. She slowed her breathing. In movements of both dancer and conductor, she commanded the water to travel in great arcs, funneling through the instrument. The notes were strong, deep, melancholic.

The sound vibrated over water and rock and into her mother's chest. She was forever swallowing down the fear that her daughter's sadness was born of knowledge received too early. Had there been a moment that could have been guarded against? Had there been a time when life had felt truly light? Happy? Perhaps mothers don't really change either.

Michiru would never know that her music reverberated beyond the chambers and into the lives of her people. That the classmates whose approval she sought would pause in their afternoons, would feel a connection to a wordless sorrow, would inexplicably feel less alone.

Her mother had composed herself by the time the practice was over.

Michiru bowed. Opened her eyes.

"It's like a huge mirror." Michiru spoke. "But the reflections aren't still."

"Like a divining surface?"

"Like I could disappear."

Her mother shook her head and approached to wrap a robe around the earnest musician.

"I need you to stay here, OK?" Her mother hugged the cold little body. "I need you."

"OK." She said. "I can be here now."

XXX

By age seven Haruka had witnessed the death of 3 men, 1 woman, 2 animals. This was the soldier's way. To observe and move on. Death is part of life. Death gives a final relief. It was the first death, however, the angry man, who would never leave her mind. The latter of the two animals had been her father's horse. He had become slow.

"Can't we just let him free, Sir?"

"A soldier does not question his superiors."

"A soldier does not close his eyes to… to…"

"This is important."

"I don't want to cut him."

"If you don't, an enemy will. Royal horses are well-known. Enemies aren't kind in death."

The horse released a blustery sound from its lips.

Haruka looked over to the creature. It wasn't as though they had a rapport. She approached and stroked its belligerent nose.

"Is it a boy?" She asked her father.

"A girl."

"OK." She considered its dark eyes for recognition. "Hi, girl."

The horse calmed somewhat. Did she understand? The air felt still. Haruka's vision blurred.

"It's enough now." Rivulets of hot water ran down her face. She continued to run her small hand down the animal's snout. "We say good bye today."

She lead the horse away from their home and towards the yawning pit she had spent the previous day digging with blunt tools.

Perhaps it is enough to say that she used her father's sword. That it was quick. Messy. That the collapse was final. That she had filled the grave with her hands. That she slept beside it that night. That she had prayed the horse, who was a girl, who was faithful to her father, would enter a more care-free afterlife than she could imagine. She envisioned for it a horizon of green fields free of men, where water was abundant, not diverted to cool the manufacture of weapons of war. Where creatures are not weapons of war. Where people are not.

Where she was not.

Was that where happiness lived? Somewhere ignorant of battles?

Just like that man had said?

The King watched the return of his daughter, who he did not call his daughter, with something like empathy.

Her back ached. Her clothes were dirty with mud and blood. She was not ready to be lectured or corrected. She didn't meet his gaze. If she had, she might have seen something to ease her mind.

We can only speculate.

The King left for an extended spell after that event. He claimed the need to acquire a new steed. In her heart, Haruka hoped this next one would out-live her.

A soldier's path is walked alone.

For two earth months, she remained without her father. In the light hours she completed a physical training regime; running, weights and sparring with local boys. Metal swords were too expensive. They used rods or clubs. In the evenings, she read texts of philosophy. Rocky yawned round her ankles. She listed the words that confused her, awaiting her father's return.

Five month later, she greeted her father with:

"What will war achieve?"

"What? Don't' be ridiculous. What does the sun achieve? What do the stars? The Sky?

"Stability. Navigation. Hope."

She was hit across the face.

"War is not an option. It is the reality. Who are you reading?"

"Everyone."

"From where?"

"Everywhere."

"Neptune?"

"Of course."

"They are cowards."

"They want revolution,"

"It's a lofty goal."

"All goals are."

She was hit again. The familiar metallic taste entered her mouth.

"I'll fight." She said. "Not believe. But fight. Until I'm nothing."

"Who do you fight for?" Her father asked.

The fire flickered in the hearth. Her dog yawned in front of it, oblivious.

"I don't know. Just… everything. So everything can keep being."

"What about you? Yourself?"

"I'm tired of being, sir."

"You are a child!"

"Yes."

"You're too young to…"

"When is enough, sir?"

The King raised his hand. Stopped. He turned away and watched the dog for a moment.

"Your sparring sessions are going well."

"Fine, sir."

"Then the challenge is too light. Tomorrow you go in unarmed."

She sighed. "I will need recovery days."

"You may have one. Any more and you take them outside of this house."

"But my bones – "

"If you are careless enough to damage your bones you will recover elsewhere."

"Yes, sir."

Perhaps it is enough to say that it went as well as could be expected, that the assigned sparring partners were armed, that they were told not to hold back. Perhaps it is enough to say that some of the boys were left in tears. That she wasn't.

That she had forgotten them.

She had no mood to face her father afterwards. It was clear that it would take more than a day's recovery. She knew her body and its signs. She called to her dog and limped towards a setting sun. There was a safe place only an hour or two away. Shelter. Water.

The girl and the dog curled together in a recess in the rock face. The girl slept better than the dog, who was inclined to stretch and kick.

She awoke late. She wasn't sure whether the vision was part of the real world or a creation of her mind.

There was a girl in the water!

Or rather, a girl made of water. Her feet, her body took on the silhouette of a girl, but her form was filled by the rippling water from the lake before the cave's opening.

"Are you real?"

The real or fake apparition giggled. Maybe it didn't matter. "I think so." She said.

"Like an angel?"

"I'm a girl."

"I'm a soldier."

"Soldier? I can't see you. Step into the water?"

Haruka was hesitant. Surely this could be a cruel trick. Her ankles might be pulled to drown in the shallows. She wasn't strong enough to resist such a thing. Her mind might be playing a strange game. It could be an enchantment. She found herself stepping forward nonetheless.

"I'm here." She said.

"Oh." Said the girl. There was a quiver in the water. "Oh, your sadness, soldier?"

"Yes?"

"Don't leave."

"I'm here."

"I feel you wanting to leave."

Haruka waivered at that point. The girl tilted her head slightly. Not angry. Not disappointed. Haruka's throat tightened and released a sob. How could a strange water creature know that she…? How she…? She fell to her knees, splashing recklessly. She hid her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook. She tried to breathe like normal.

"Girl?" She asked, "how do I call you?"

"Friend." Came the answer. "I am your friend, sad soldier. Please stay?"

"I hurt." She shook her head. "All of me. The outside and the inside, I'm a curse. I curse everyone. I'm supposed to undo my curse but I – I just don't think – "

"Your heart is pure and pure and pure. Like crystal." Said the girl.

"I'm so, so, messed and dirty and broken and – "

"I want you to stay." Said the girl. "I feel your… something. I have felt you before, maybe?"

"Huh?"

"You are a familiar feeling."

"You see me?"

"Sort of. I'm still learning. I feel you in the water. We are connected."

"Really? Are you from here?"

"I? No. I am from Neptune."

"No. No I can't be with… it's not allowed. No!"

Haruka pushed back from the edge of the lake and scrambled backwards. The watery figure of the girl remained, looking around as though lost.

"Soldier? Are you there? Please live."

Haruka held her injured knee to her chest. "I'm here." She said. "I shouldn't talk to you."

"I hear your words and not your feeling."

"I don't want to feel anymore."

"I know." Said the water girl. "It's a curse of living."

"For everyone?"

"Every, every, everyone. They don't say it in words."

"Really?"

The water girl nodded confidently.

"Girl? Do you have sadness?"

"Oh, yes." Said the girl. "I have my own and I remember everyone else's. I swim in sadnesses. All different and the same."

"Really?"

"Hmm. The deepest sadness being alone. But you aren't."

"I have Rock." She answered.

"And me." Said the girl. "I think. I don't know where from? You are a familiar feeling. You are like a happy memory that I can't touch. Please stay, soldier? I think I feel less without you."


	5. Chapter 5

_Hello?_

 _Yes, this is Meioh Setsuna._

 _She has? Really?_

 _Thank you. Oh, can we? We'll be right over. Thank - Thank you._

 _Did you hear that?_

 _Your Papa has opened her eyes!_

 _Yes. Are you ready?_

 _Packed up for school?_

 _No, you are still going to school. But we'll visit the hospital first._

 _XXX_

 _The room is small. Her chest hurts. She keeps forgetting the location and nature of a great many injuries. Some minor, some… uncertain. And things attached to her. Worrying. She keeps falling asleep. It is as if the planet is turning too fast; night fall then night fall then night fall. The people in sky-coloured clothes are always talking as she awakes. They say a lot of things at her, always with 'don't try to speak'. She doesn't. They beam hot light into her eyes and move it back and forth so that when she closes her eyelids there remains the shade of the light ever falling._

 _A man was in there earlier. Once or more? She isn't certain. He had on black, not blue. Had a particular scent. Something familiar maybe? From outside. He seemed safe. She looked at her as hard as a light in the eyes. He looked sad. They said don't speak; she didn't speak. There were tubes. He didn't rattle words; he mumbled them like a sea in the distance._

 _A sea._

 _She had been underwater, had she? Or a nightmare? The sea had swallowed her. She had swallowed the sea. In her lungs it had been dark and unlovely and choking. The thought poisons her with panic._

 _But she keeps falling asleep._

 _It was the man that sang to her, she thinks, because it was a calm and far away sound. And it was sad like his face had been. He had a guitar and it sang too._

 _"I might have had a king's daughter_

 _Far, far beyond the sea;_

 _I might have had a king's daughter_

 _If it had it not been for thee."_

 _She sleeps. She awakes to urgent sounding steps. The people in blue don't tread that way; their feet scuff fast, but don't tap. She feels before she opens her eyes that this is a bad sign, she feels it in her pulse and it changes her breathing and her chest tightens and it radiates pain. Her eyes water and already her forehead it wet and – the door is pushed open._

"… _Pluto…?!"_

" _Haruka!"_

" _Who?"_

 _Then she sees it._

 _The bad – the worst – the most terrible thing! That spectre-like child._

 _Destruction incarnate._

 _Her blood freezes. Saturn. It's Saturn. She is sure. There is a keening, beep from behind her. "It's her – why did you? You brought the – she will end everything …! Pluto! What's happening?"_

 _Her view is crowded out by a wall of blue-clothes. It was too soon, they say, we need to go slowly. It's OK Miss Ten-oh, they say. They say Ten-O a lot. They think she's an emperor? Or is it her number? Should she count back from…? She doesn't know how to correct them. And all her strength – all of it that she needs to stop the girl – isn't there anymore. She can't fight off all of them. She can barely even…_

 _In her dreams there is a voice. It must be a dream. It is very soothing. She imagines a mother's tone to be this way. She doesn't remember her own mother's voice. She doesn't know if it's a memory she holds. That occurs desperately sad to her._

" _By the time Haruka was a little older than you," says the mother-voice, "She was already more talented with a sword than most grown men."_

 _But then there is a child's voice. A daughter-voice. It's like listening from underwater. "Did she always like dangerous things, Setsuna-mama?"_

" _Like? It's hard to say. Sometimes it doesn't matter. But I think you may be right. She does have a flair for the flamboyantly hazardous."_

" _What's flam-boy-anta-lee?"_

" _It's like being… extra. Dramatic."_

" _Oh. Like Thespians?"_

" _You know the word 'thespians'?"_

" _Yup. Haruka-papa and Michiru-mama are that."_

" _Uh – perhaps – in some sense…? We might talk about that later. At home."_

" _OK. Tell me about when she was little but bigger than me."_

XXX

At that time the boys Haruka trained with assumed she too was a boy. It was possible she shared the assumption to some extent. The King was uncomfortable with conversations generally left to mothers. It came up in a summer that was particularly unforgiving.

"A soldier cannot shed his armour in the heat of battle!" Her father berated.

"It was a million degrees!" She protested. "I only took off my shirt like the other guys."

"You're _not_ the other guys."

"Sir, by emulation, a soldier can win over his comrades by…"

"No. Clothes stay on."

"I could've fainted!"

"Then you aren't strong enough."

"Pretty sure I am, Sir. Pretty sure my muscles are bigger. Actually, we should arm wrestle again."

" _Haruka._ "

"Sir, it was _just_ training."

"A soldier doesn't think in terms of test-runs."

"Ugh. You're so unreasonable."

"I… ? Where did you learn that from?"

"Who cares."

" _Haruka…_ "

"Fine. From Stretch's sister."

"Who?"

"She watches practices. You don't know her. She's cute."

The King sighed. He looked back at the indignant child who could well have been a portrait of himself as a youth. But was not. This was a girl-child. A particularly difficult one. None of her siblings had been like this.

"OK. What do you do with this sister of…?"

"Stretch, Sir."

"Who names their child stretch?"

"We name him that. He's taller than me even. Like Str-eee-tch-ed."

"That's… very innovative. What do you do with the sister of Stretch."

"I don't have to tell you everything."

" _Haruka._ "

"Nothing bad. _Yeesh_."

"What in particular was 'not bad'?"

"Fine. We held hands. The soldiers in the scrolls do way more than…"

"What scrolls are you reading?"

"You don't really have to _read_ them," she snickered.

" _Haruka._ "

"I don't have to tell you everything."

The King closed his eyes. Brought his palms together and counted back from ten. They had both developed coping mechanisms for each other. He took a deep breath.

"We need to have a conversation."

"Ugh."

"Excuse me?"

"Ugh , _Sir_. I've already heard the other guys talking about _The Conversation_. I know it."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. They have to hear about blah-blah-blah and don't get everyone pregnant. Got it. I promise to not get anyone pregnant, okay?"

"I think we need to have a slightly different conversation to the one that your sparring partners have had."

"C'mon, seriously? They're soldiers just the same."

"No they aren't. Or you aren't. You have to be better."

"Make up your mind already… Sir."

"Haruka, you _are_ a soldier. You have to become a guardian."

"What!? How am I supposed to even train for that? The guardians are _ladies_!"

"Okay. Get your cloak. We need to go for a walk. I need to explain a few things."

"Am I supposed to get a _lady_ cloak now."

"You will if you don't hurry up!"

X

M

X

"You have a story?"

"Yep."

By age nine, Michiru was working with senior members of the authority to develop her abilities. Projection was a speciality that had awed the congregation. She would enter a chamber several doors down from her supervisors and transport an image of herself back to them to answer their questions. Questions requiring greater cognition – ethical dilemmas or the explanation of mathematical concepts - were used to test her capacity to focus her mind during projections. Such work was intensive; only senior members were now involved in her teaching. One of the benefits of engaging these senior staff was that they couldn't work all night. She had time for her mother.

Mother and daughter were habitually curled up on a large floor cushion placed before a great window that looked out to a dark sky. Triton was visible. Its presence, and the thought of its castle, made Michiru's mother increasingly uneasy. Well, uneasy is too easy a term. She was somehow filled with anxiety, dread, pride, hope, and deep, deep sadness. There was only one woman she could think of to discuss such things with, but she could feel that it had become too painful to raise any more.

The Queen smiled to her daughter who was absently playing with a silver pendant gifted by a Mercurian ambassador.

"What is the story of your future?" Her mother asked. "Tell me your secrets."

"My future secrets?"

"Yes. The best and the boldest."

"Hmmm. What do I get if I tell?"

"Late night privileges."

"This week?"

"Tell me the story and we'll see."

"OK."

"Tell me about your future husband."

"Oh, there isn't one." Michiru looked back to her pendant thoughtfully. She poured the silver chain from palm to palm. "How about – privileges this week right? – a love story?"

"Oh, a _love_ story? Certainly. That would work."

"In the future I won't tell you about anyone I love. Most of all who I _really_ love."

"Oh? Is that the best you can tell me?"

"I will love a soldier."

"I see. And do you marry this soldier?"

"No. I never get old enough."

"I wish you wouldn't say that."

"I will love her like the sun."

Her mother paused a moment. Her daughter felt at times a stranger to her, at times an old, old soul. She spoke so earnestly of unusual things. This little girl who spent her days impressing old men with her abilities – should she have been better protected? Those soothsayers who recounted the curse of the generation of guardians – did they forget that the curse might instead be on the children? Such questions were impossible to voice.

"That is a good secret." She said instead. "I think I will be sad never to hear it."

"I'm sorry, Mama. It's not safe for you."

"Not safe? Do you mean?"

"That's all my secrets. Do I get the privileges?"

"OK."

"Starting now!" She leapt up.

"Michiru!"

"Just going for a swim."

"But - I can come with you…"

"You can't be with me all the time." She called in a sing-song voice.

"I know." The queen whispered. "I know, I know."

When Michiru swam at night a new galaxy of glowing creatures illuminated the water. She had become practiced at holding her breath for long minutes to swim deeper. She didn't need her mother to speak of her worries. She felt them keenly. More than the sadness of anyone else. In the evenings it was a relief to be submerged, to hear her own pulse and nothing, and no one else.

Her mother was worried that she would not be happy.

Would never be.

Michiru wasn't sure if that was true. She didn't really worry about such an idea. The pain that others felt – well that was always for love wasn't it? To have lost it, to fear for loved ones, to share in their sorrows? Love was stitched through all those feelings of unhappiness. So it was hard to know what was overwhelming – her mother's sadness, or the kindness that allowed the sadness to flourish?

Had she lied about the soldier?

Maybe. It was more a guess than a story. Not so much a vision but a lingering sense left at the edge of a dream. She felt that her mother needed a little fiction to settle her soul. It wouldn't be long before she would be able to project further. Much further. Soon, while there would be fussing over the wedding between her sister and the son of Uranus, she would be sent to Triton to finally apply her learning. She had never been to the castle. She had attempted visions in her silver mirror and it had appeared very still. Many long and lonely passages of white. Few attendants. Few echoes of words or music. She could imagine adopting a position mirroring her mother; watching from a vast window. Looking back down to Neptune with its myriad sadnesses and kindnesses.

But yes, in that dream, it had been a feeling like the sun.

That part was true.


	6. Chapter 6

Pluto calls herself Setsuna now. Everyone does. Pluto is a secret name.

Her name, she is told, is Haruka. Seems an unfortunate joke really; an identity that remains always on the horizon of recollection. _Distant_. She supposes she is.

And they are keeping things from her. It is clear from the hope betrayed on their expressions when she stumbles on something she should know. She tries to bluff. Haruka is no good at bluffing, she decides. Haruka's face is far too readable. Her face. She shares it with a stranger.

Is she a good person?

Was she ever?

Setsuna brings her daughter in for visits too. She apologises to the daughter of Setsuna.

"You looked like a… you reminded me of a scary… I think a memory -a trauma." She says to the pale child whose eyes are a warm, curious violet.

"Don't be scared." Hotaru says. And she holds her hand.

The gesture makes her suddenly feel as though she should cry. But she can't explain it. So she doesn't.

"You're not so scary, really." She grins. "You only look a bit like your Mama."

"Which one?" Hotaru cocks her head.

"Plu- uh, Setsuna…?"

That was a clue, she decides. There is a look between them – Hotaru and Setsuna – and she knows she's stumbled on something again. There have been drips going into her arm and she feels this too is the way information to being provided. Tiny little increments.

Not safe to go over too much, Ms. Tenoh, they say. Memory loss can be a way that a body protects itself. Better that things come back on their own.

"A soldier protects himself with the resources to hand!" She returns. Didn't think it through.

"You were a driver, Ms. Tenoh, not a soldier. We went over this, remember?"

"I know…I… it's from… somebody told me that once."

"Get some rest."

"It's all I do."

"And we are all thankful for that."

Another clue: Setsuna often leaves Hotaru for long breaks and returns appearing as though she has been crying. Or sometimes happy. But always _something_. Something intense. Setsuna, she decides, is visiting another patient at the hospital. Hotaru's father perhaps?

Had there been an accident? She looks down at Hotaru, who quickly had quickly become comfortable, leaning against her chest, and looking at a picture book about science.

Today is the planets. Hotaru talks away as though they have known each other for the longest time. She asks if she can use the name "Haruka-papa." It is an odd but fair request. She accedes.

"It takes about three days to get to the moon." Hotaru informs her.

"Depends on your projection skill." Says Haruka.

Hotaru snaps her head around. That curious look.

"You remember?" Hotaru looks hopeful. "You're starting to remember?"

"What… do you mean? Has Setsuna been talking to you about…?"

"She tells me about when you were little and had a dog called Rocky."

Rocky? Rock! Yes, her childhood pet. She cannot help but smile.

"Rocky followed me everywhere. Even when he shouldn't have."

"But you loved him, Haruka-papa."

"Very much. He was my only friend except… no, there has a girl, I think…?"

It feels like a plug has been pulled and her brain is drowning. Hotaru's worried face is in and out of focus.

"Do you mean Mi – "

"Hotaru, that's enough." Setsuna's voice comes from the direction of the door way.

Haruka lies back. She is certain, if she doesn't that she will lose consciousness altogether.

"She was remembering…!" Hotaru retorts.

"'s okay…" She breathes. "I just need a little… rest I think…"

X

 _Well, it's true, your Haruka-papa did have more friends than she might recall. But Rocky was probably the longest running companion._

At the age of 11, the time had come for Haruka to leave the small stone building for good. Her training to become a guardian had to be undertaken at Castle Miranda.

"The carriage will arrive tomorrow when it is still dark." Her father announced. "In it there will be representatives of our court, myself… and, well, your mother."

"And Rocky, Sir?"

"He can't travel in a carriage."

"Then how will I get there, Sir?"

"Don't be silly."

"But Rock –"

Rocky barked at the sound of his name and scrambled up as if awaiting direction. He sat with his tail pounding against the cold floor. Haruka scratched behind his ears.

"A soldier must forgo the things he holds dearest to continue advancing."

"Sir, I understand." Haruka looked down and fingered the medallion denoting her royal status. "The location of the means of transportation is two months on foot." She murmured.

"That is so. The carriage will bear us there swiftly."

"And my mother…"

"She will be… overjoyed to see you."

"But she is a stranger to me."

"Sorry?"

"I will pack my bags, Sir."

It was a job that took little time. She took the clothes that seemed important: her thickest boots, her heavy cape. She took her sword and a good quantity of water. She returned to stand in front of her father. She was near as tall as he was now.

"Haruka," he laughed, "You needn't ready yourself just yet. We'll sleep here for tonight and –"

"I will leave now, Sir." She whistled to summon her dog.

"Don't be ridiculous. Your mother will be on her way as we speak…"

Haruka took the medallion from around her neck and looked at the symbol there for a moment. She took her father's wrist, raised it and put the medallion in his palm.

"A soldier must forgo the things…" She closed her eyes and swallowed. "that she holds dearest."

She continued. She couldn't stammer, though she felt her eyes burn. "That is… that was you." She told her father. "You are my family. All that I knew. You are what I leave now."

And she released the wrist of the king. And she pushed through the door. And she began the two month walk with her dog at her side.

Because the daughter was too much like the king, she did not look back to reveal the tears lining her face. Because the King was too much like his daughter, he did not call out so that she might see his.

X

Castle Triton had not been so unpopulated as first thought. At the age of eleven, Michiru had had two boyfriends and one girlfriend. She was not certain whether it was the first boyfriend or the last girlfriend that she preferred the most.

The boy climbed foolishly high things then teetered on the top as if about to fall to make her laugh. He was good at diving and a strong swimmer. They had studied together when she had just started. He was an average student with a lot of friends. Perhaps not a lot, but certainly more than she had. They went to the pools together. It seemed everything about him was exaggerated. He shook out his hair like a hound after swimming. He shivered with his teeth chattering loudly when wet and cold. He laughed a lot. He had a manner that made it seem perfectly normal that she might participate in a cheerful life like his own. It felt as though he always had a hand outstretched, as if to say "Why not come along?" As if it was the simplest thing.

He kissed her. It took some time, but it was nice. After the kiss he couldn't meet Michiru's eyes. He was strangely bashful. He scampered home. She didn't mind too much. She knew she could trust that he would be there again tomorrow, embarrassment forgotten, ready to splash into the water.

The girl had been quite different. She was a very gifted student, several years older than Michiru. She had introduced herself outside of the library with some mockery, "how long must you watch me read before you bring yourself to speak?"

Michiru admitted she had perhaps resigned herself never to have interrupted such study. The girl had said, "We work in practice, not theory."

And she had taken both of Michiru's hands in her own and projected the both of them to the very top of the library roof. The ledge was very narrow. The wind had been powerful. Michiru was scared to let go of the girl's hands. It was a risky projection. Had she miscalculated by a meter or so…

The girl had long pale hair and eyes and no attitude towards apology. She took her hands away from Michiru who grasped behind for the safety of some railing.

"You are a very talented diviner," said the girl. "You are the princess who will save us."

The girl looked down to the ground below. Michiru watched the cold marble of the steps to the library gleamed back.

This girl smiled strangely.

"I wonder if you can save me." And she leant back and fell from the ledge.

The reaction was quick and wrong.

Michiru dived forward. She reached desperately. In mid-flight she pulled her arms around the waist of the girl. She concentrated on the clear space in front of the building. The ground drew nearer. She held her breath.

They projected.

Both of them.

Michiru and the girl reappeared lying on the earth. Or rather, Michiru was lying on the girl who was on the earth. Michiru exhaled. The girl let out a little laugh. Michiru pulled back. The gravity of the challenge dawned on her and inflamed her anger. She stood and brushed the dust from her tunic. Such a dangerous thing! Such a foolish thing to –

"Don't go," said the girl. "You really are amazing."

"I don't like to be teased." She said, swallowing. To think she had wasted those hours pondering over this girl's face!

"I didn't mean to upset you."

"We could have been killed!"

"But you saved us." The girl answered. "Anyway, it isn't prophesised that you die in such a way."

"I don't rely on prophecy."

"Is it true that you may never meet with the daughters of Uranus and Pluto? That it would call forth the guardian of –"

"I _said_ I don't rely of prophecy."

"Aren't you curious?"

"Please leave me alone."

"But I want to know you better," said the girl, "don't you want to know me better?"

Everything about this girl had a kind of challenge to it. But she seemed to soften with her last question. Michiru could not help but feel the shimmer of sadness. Sadness is a great truth teller.

Michiru looked back at the girl and swallowed down her uncertainty. "I admit that I thought you were very beautiful… But I _don't_ think that you are very kind."

"But I can be," answered the girl softly. "I could be."

They spent long afternoons together. The girl's mother was a sculptor who carved away at giant columns of white rock. The impressive space she worked in contained great mounds of fine dust. The girl showed Michiru this. She was eager to show Michiru a great many places. They used projection techniques to escape to secluded coves or lakes.

Michiru kissed the girl. She was not certain what time passed. It perhaps stood still. She found it difficult to look the girl in the eye afterwards. She wondered if this had been what the boy felt.

"Don't be scared," said the girl. "This is just another way to know you better."

As it resulted, she perhaps should have been scared.

The unapologetic girl had a tendency tease other girls into following her about too. Was it a game? Michiru had demanded once, quite tearfully. The girl appeared quite taken aback.

"Does your father not have many wives and lovers?" Was the response. "Do you not follow the philosopher's path?"

It was so dreadfully reasonable. And Michiru felt herself unable to breathe steadily. Was she sad or furious? Could she be both at once?

"What should I care about my father's wives?"

"I don't know how to answer."

"I don't want to love a thousand people… I want a thousand days with one." She choked the last word. "I want to learn the thousand faces of one person. I want…"

"Don't you think I know the prophecy of the prince of Uranus?"

"He will marry my sister once the negotiations complete."

"Shall we both pretend not to know why the negotiations are stalled?"

"I don't know him. I don't love him."

"You are a child."

"He is nowhere in my visions."

"But someone is," said the girl. "Someone else. Don't' forget I can see these things too."


	7. Chapter 7

The man's name is Ikeda. He knows Haruka. He doesn't know Uranus… she thinks. Ikeda always arrives alone. He tends to slink away when Setsuna and Hotaru visit. The nurses like him and his soothing songs. It is surprising to her that his large-knuckled hands with their sawn-off fingernails are able to elicit such careful sounds. The image of a woman's white hand glances across her thoughts. Memory? Dream, maybe. He's a bit of a strange guy; all of his lyrics are of longing. When the lyrics aren't, the chords are. Is that just a musician thing?

The question only occurrs to her after several visits.

 _C'mon, Haruka._

It must have been code.It had to be. Ikeda was sending a reminder of their relationship, right? Is Haruka _involved_ with this man? The thought keeps her up.

He is a nice guy, certainly, but he stirs no desire in her. How awkward! How is she going to explain that? She rather likes the singing, but she just doesn't _feel_ … surely she would feel something?

There was nothing for it.

He turns up the next afternoon. He has a denim shirt pulled up to his elbows. His forearms are laced with raised veins. Haruka winces trying to conjure an attraction to such arms. Veiny arms. He doesn't really introduce his arrival or enquire after her health but sits, opens the guitar case, and starts with some tentative tuning. He pauses, seems satisfied, and begins a delicate opening strum when she interrupts.

"Ikeda, are we dating?"

His palm slaps the guitar. He looks her in the eyes. His brows are knitted. He opens his mouth slightly, but doesn't form words.

"Look, I'm sorry to ask," she continues, "I just don't remember… I'm still not sure who I was… who I've been of late. And you seem very nice, but I…"

"No." He says.

"No?"

He smiles gently. "No. And… I get the feeling that even with your memory… fuzzy…I wouldn't have any luck…"

He resumes playing the song about the King's daughter once more.

Does that mean that they had almost dated? Was there a reason? A person?

"So, have you known me to be in love?" She asks.

"…I can't say. The people here have said. It's dangerous to make you to recall…"

"So I have."

"Of course you have. Look at you."

"How does that…?"

"You're just…Ah…" He bends his head. "People always fall for you. All it took was for you to fall back once."

"People?"

"People."

"Not just… men?"

Ikeda smiles again. "Of all the things to forget."

He begins closing his case. He seems hurt.

"Wait." Haruka reaches out and stops the veiny arm. "Ikeda, was I… am I a good person? I mean, do I…?"

"I think so." He nods. "I only know as much as you let me… but I think so."

So she hadn't been wrong about him. But he isn't for her. Good, she supposes. Good that she concurs with her former self. But she feels sorry for him. _Of all the things to forget._ Had he left because she couldn't face it? Or was it that _he_ couldn't?

There are more clues. The chattering nurses. They frequently made the mistake of equating her silence with a lack of comprehension. She hears it all. Critical information. What they say was:

"…and how long has she been with the beautiful woman with the hair?"

"The hair?"

"The green hair!"

"Oh, her…!"

Hotaru is still at school when Setsuna visits next. She looks tired when she arrives. She is in her work wear, an outfit Haruka might have predicted. There have been enough visits that she now recognises the sets; this skirt with that necklace; these heels with that blouse. But Setsuna never mentioned Hotaru's father, did she? She goes to attend to flowers in a vase. Wait. Haruka shakes her head. Wait Hotaru's father – she'd – she'd met him… he was… he'd had white hair hadn't…?

"How are you feeling today?" Setsuna sits in the guest chair, crosses her legs, pushes her hair over her shoulder and – her hair! _She_ has green hair. Wait. _Wait_.

"Haruka?"

"…I…?"

"Are you – do you need one of the nurses?"

"No I… why?"

"You're staring at my legs."

"Setsuna, I'm so sorry!"

"…That's… OK?"

"I'd forgotten. I've forgotten everything…!"

"Haruka, look, it's going to be fine if you can just be patient. I mean patience was never really your strong suit, but…"

"How long have we been together?"

"Today?"

"You're the one, aren't you? You're the woman?"

"…I'm… _a_ woman, yes…"

"That's not what I mean."

"I'm afraid I don't…"

"How long have we been sleeping together?"

"What?"

"Do you need me to re-phrase?"

"Oh my gods…"

"Hotaru's father – I can picture him, but he's not… he isn't around anymore, is he? Why did she ask to call me "Papa and – "

"Haruka, stop."

"I can't be patient anymore – if we were together then – "

"Haruka. We. Do. _Not_. Sleep. Together."

"But then…?"

"Ever."

"You're so cranky."

"You're being ridiculous."

"You're giving me no option! What could possibly be so terrible to prevent recall?"

Setsuna looks away for a moment. A bird chirrups outside and hops and swoops between branches.

"People like us don't just have a single lifetime to remember. Not just one life worth of happiness and… suffering."

"People like us?"

"Guardians."

"I see."

"When all of that memory is triggered on top of…on top of the _recent_ past." She stands then to watch the park grounds beyond. "I'm afraid that it could be too much. We don't want to lose you. Whatever version we get."

The clouds move slowly. The outside world is dimmed by the window. Haruka slumps back against her pillow and looks at the inconsistencies in the tiles of the ceiling.

"Setsuna…" She sighs. "I think I'm gay."

Setsuna laughs? This is something new entirely! She folds her arms around her stomach, then grabs her chair back. She shakes. She gasps. She sounds as through she needs her own nurse. Haruka's patience is tested once more.

"Is that really an appropriate response? I mean, are you even my friend?"

"Oh, a moment ago I was supposedly your _girl_ friend."

"Lucky we stopped that before it started."

"Oh, c'mon, please – _please_ – tell me – was it me? Did I awaken this realisation of yours?"

"Yes. The legs."

"Haruka!"

"No, of course not. It was the nurses."

"Ugh! You really _are_ no different…"

"That's not what I mean. They were talking about a woman with green hair… I don't know." She rubs her eyes with irritation. "Probably another patient, right? Otherwise my mystery woman would've visited already."

Setsuna's laughing fit seems to have abated. She smiles gently. "Well I'm touched that you thought of me."

"You're welcome. I guess you're just going to have to take me somewhere once I'm out of here to find a… _person_ … to date."

"Haruka. You really need not worry about your ambiguous sexuality."

"So then I am…?"

"Gay as a sailor."

"Funny."

"Sometimes."

Setsuna stays a while. She talks about Hotaru's school work, the things she's enjoying (Chemistry), the things she does not (Phys. Ed.). Haruka suggests they go to the batting cages when she's allowed out. Setsuna looks surprised that she recalls such trivia.

"We're in Japan. I'm hardly going to forget about baseball." She lobs back.

But she isn't better yet. She isn't better and she isn't herself and she still gets so very terribly tired. Her brain rides and earworm from a song of Ikeda's. She tumbles down into a black confusion and finds her way into the light of a dream.

X

She is younger, a teenager she supposes. What she wears is heavy. But she is strong – very strong, she thinks. She can feel energy – power – crackling from across her chest to her shoulders and down her arms. She catches it in her fists. Yes, power. _Power_!

She wears metal. At least on her upper body – her legs are free. She walks along a wide, blank corridor. To her right are closed doors, to her left are white pillars and the dark wide-open sky. Ink black. Star studded. The planet she grew up on is a distant blue apparition. She will not return now. She approaches the training area with a particular determination. She is never disturbed there – she is rarely disturbed elsewhere – but she thinks of it now as her personal sanctuary.

The entrance way yields without her touch. She clasps her fist to the center of her chest then thrusts it into the air before her. The energy gathered in her palm courses forth and forces the doors clattering ajar. They don't break this time. Good. Control. She must learn to control this if she is to become a fit guardian.

The expanse is neat and clean, there is a faint scent of something herbal. The attendants are fixated on using medical additives in the bathing water. There are heavy implements and bars to pull up on for the growth of muscle. There are lanes and courses to move through for the development of agility. A battered post marks the new site of her sword practice. It is true, she misses her sparring days. There is also a pool for the strengthening of lungs, the practice of combat in different atmospheres. It was crude, but it assisted nonetheless.

Rocky had followed her into the gym. He didn't gallop anymore; he was too old now. She'd always (guiltily) suspected that the journey to Castle Miranda would take its toll on him. He stretches and settles himself against the climbing bars with an amiable yawn.

This is how they live now; relative peace. No scuffles with locals. No midnight drills. No weeks of fasting. No shocks. No wrecks.

Is it worth admitting? She is restless. She is bored. Perhaps just mentally fatigued from the series of challenges that disappeared with the severance from her father.

She stands in front of the pool, crosses her arms over her plated chest and leans backwards. There is a splash. Icy. Water rushes painfully into her nostrils and burns a course for her brain. Her fringe swims before her eyes. The pool around her is somehow even more quiet – but less intimate – than the rooms she lives in. The lights across the ceiling ripple from her vantage point.

She starts a count down.

The body is designed to resist its own demise – how long could she control that switch? In the past Rocky had jumped in out of concern. Foolish hound. Old and foolish. At some point she will have to make a decision about him…

… _Ninety Two. Ninety One. Ninety…_

There is a humming sound. She looks around. It's foreign. Suddenly the game of breath-holding isn't important. She exhales and pushes herself to the surface. The hum is in a pulse. The pulse has attacked her chest. A real and impossible double grab on her heart. The timing is wrong. She catches a solid edge and drags herself free of the water, coughing. The hum is a drone. Rocky's ears are pricked. It is coming from the water.

She pulls herself back from the pool and watches a liquid vortex develop. It grows upwards. The blue churns and spins impossibly high. She gets to her feet. It looms before her.

She draws her sword.

Rocky barks and joins her side.

"Back, Rock."

He doesn't obey anymore.

The water spout is taking an unusual form. The noise grows louder – winds pull in from unknown places and then…! Haruka guards her eyes.

And then silence.

Watery laughter.

"What a handsome pair." Comes the voice.

It is the shape of a girl – or woman – that has been formed from the water in the pool. The folds of her dress and the tresses of her hair continue to undulate though her voice is quite calm.

"You… can see?" Haruka asks, reconsidering the unsheathing of her blade.

"I see some of your shape. Your posture." She of the water walks the water to come closer, "I'm afraid I can't quite manifest from such a distance."

"What distance? Where are you from?"

"A castle, like you."

"We've met before, haven't we?"

"I think so, my soldier."

"…You saved me."

"You have grown more beautiful, I feel." The watery laugh again. "I can't believe quite how you appear."

"The water perhaps casts an iridescence over your view."

"Perhaps. When you are out of the water it is hard to see."

"I'm afraid you will drown me."

"Surely such things don't strike fear in the daughter of Uranus?"

"Not really."

"I felt your dissatisfaction rippling through space."

"That is quite a talent."

"It is a loud dissatisfaction! Come into the water, what do you wear?"

"Me? I am in my armour. My robes and – "

"Take them off. Come into the water."

She looks sceptically at the apparition waving before her. "You are the diviner from Neptune?"

"Do you not swim?"

"Yes, _yes_." She dislikes the implied slight. She unbuckles and shrugs off the metal from her shoulders and tugs the wet fabric from her body. In a manner, perhaps somewhat showy, she dives cleanly into the pool and takes a lap around the woman who now turns instantly to watch her surface. "Of course I can swim."

"Oh my." Says the water. "I hadn't quite expected."

"What's that?"

"You really are beautiful."


	8. Chapter 8

She awoke in a sweat. The woman was important – the woman from the water – what was her name? Her language? They had shared one, but it wasn't quite… She was a real person wasn't she? Not just a dream or memory, not just an apparition – she was flesh and blood? She had to be. She had to be because something had stirred with the thought of her – an old and painful and familiar thing.

That was it: the crest of a recollection; a truth in which she was fluent.

Her head pounded.

Physiotherapy sessions were scheduled to start that day. The real ones. She was bored with the strength tests ' _push against my arm'_ or ' _see if you can touch these fingertips together._ ' Waste of time.

She wanted to walk – to _run_ really – was she a runner? The patient, moderately attractive therapist was to accompany her on a traverse of the ward's corridor. Ridiculous. Cake walk. The physio helped her to her feet. Her feet seemed to have forgotten a lot. Haruka was embarrassed, then quickly frustrated, with the failure of her limbs to work in a coordinated manner.

"Remember to breathe." Said the therapist.

"I think I can remember _that much_." She snapped.

"Your cheeks are rather pink." She muttered.

Haruka grabbed for an arm in support. "Sorry." She managed through clenched teeth. "Sorry. I don't know why I can't…"

"You'll get there." The smile was at least encouraging. "You've come a long way already – sometimes it's hard to recognise."

The woman's gaze strayed through an open door. Haruka took the opportunity to regain her balance and looked over. Past the green curtains, a young woman lay perfectly still. At least it appeared to be a woman. Her head was mostly overwhelmed by white bandages, but the features of her face were visible and quite delicate. Must've been something serious.

"Like sleeping beauty." Haruka said to her doctor. "How long has she been here?"

"Ah," the therapist nodded for her to continue with a few more steps. "I think… about the same time as you. Thereabouts."

"Ugh." Haruka said. "I don't suppose she is in the corridor-stagger stages yet."

Each connection of her foot with the floor appeared at a slightly wrong angle. Worse than being drunk!

"I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to discuss other patients with you." The doctor offered her arm again, "But no, I'm not her therapist."

"She'll be okay, though, right?"

"We all hope so."

Haruka held out until the night shift began before attempting to walk again. She couldn't bear waiting for the official appointment in the schedule of a hospital employee. If she fell, she fell. She didn't have an average person's body, why should she tolerate an average person's recovery plan?

A mischievous thrill ran around her ribs. She almost wanted to laugh. After the next round of torch shining and pain killer administration she sat upright and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The realisation of the mistake was instantaneous. She very nearly snatched and sent expensive-looking machinery clattering. The nurses would've been in like lightening. Did she have an excuse? They already seemed on the verge of arranging a psych evaluation. Garbled talk of past lives did little to inspire confidence in members of the medical profession.

One foot in front of the other. _And breathe_. And forget the indignity of a semi-public outing in pyjamas. Setsuna had brought those in, had she? She made use of the wall for support. She did so by slamming against it and grasping for a handhold. She gritted her teeth. Her back was already slick with sweat. _Breathe, breathe, this is just part of the_ …

She came by the door of the sleeping woman's room again. _And here we pause._ Again the woman lay quite still. The moon though the window painted her paler than before.

A torch! The nurses were on the move. Instinctively, although inelegantly, Haruka reached for the handle to the room, swung herself in and, holding her breath, and closed it again – as quietly as she could muster.

It was way too much exertion for one movement. She slid to the ground, breathing through her teeth. What had she become? Broken. Pathetically weak. Left to play imaginary games of hide and seek with overworked night staff. _C'mon, Haruka._

She steadied her lungs and looked up to the oblivious dreamer in the bed. She had missed the name on the door. There was a chair at the bedside. That would be her next target. Her arms were stronger than her legs. She began crawling army-style, then pulled herself up onto the chair. Success. With the curtains pulled just slightly – _yes_ – she would be out of the line of sight from the door.

Sleeping beauty was quite patient.

"Sorry to intrude." Haruka whispered, "You seemed lonely in here so…"

She certainly had a lovely face. Fine features. She her lips had something of a Mona Lisa set; bemused. What colour might her eyes be? How did she wear her hair? The bandages were rather devastating. Those and the machines. She wasn't taking a regular sleep, obviously.

"I'm sorry you're here." Haruka took a hand that was taped up to tubes as hers had once been. The hand was just a little cold. A bad sign. The woman was barely there.

"Don't leave, OK? We're betting on you. The leg therapist lady and me. You and I came in here around the same time so… y'know, let's both try get out of here, alright?"

It was the strangest thing. The ghost of a movement. A sleep spasm? Haruka was sure she had felt a pressure, a clenching of the woman's hand. She released it.

Hopefully the family of her fellow patient would not object to a night visitor. The moon shone prettily. She crossed her arms and let her eyes close. It was peaceful in here. There seemed something natural about dozing in a space with another person. Another heartbeat. She leaned back a little further and sunk into the depth of the night.

X

 _Oh, our story? Yes, they were rather older when they were able to meet each other in person._

 _Younger than they are in this life, but yes, older than you._

 _I couldn't be there, you see, but I heard the stories. I'll tell you what I can._

 _Then it's teeth cleaning and bed, OK?_

 _I know, I know. I miss her voice too. At least we have one of them for now._

 _No, it doesn't feel right, does it?_

 _Settle down now. Settle and I'll begin._

X

It was planned. Uranian tradition dictated that she be present. Such a union was a union of families, not just individuals. The officials had determined it: the daughter of Pluto was to remain at a great distance. A foolish amount of correspondence had gone into avoiding the precursor to an old prophecy. The Neptunians took such warnings seriously.

The prophecy had created the law and the law was this: the chosen daughters of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto must never meet. Such a gathering would initiate the call. It was one that would be answered by the soldier of destruction. And then what? Nothing, they said. Nothing and nothing and nothing. In this prophecy all visions of a possible future were swallowed up.

But safeguards were in place, and so it would be. Both should attend the ceremony, but they need never meet. Both young guardians had been severely instructed as to the importance of avoiding the other.

"You understand, young diviner, what such a connection has been associated with?"

"I do."

"Such an event would catalyse the end of our very existence."

"I appreciate your counsel. I understand."

"You are a fine scholar and an honourable guardian."

Words were not quite matched in the other Kingdom.

"For the sake of the farcical philosophers, you have to keep away from the daughters of Neptune."

" _All_ of them?"

"Can you just say you understand."

"Do I need to attend?"

"Yes. Just once. No messing with any potential sisters-in-law. Or… would they be cousins?"

"I'll be sure to ask that of any women I encounter."

" _Haruka_."

"Fine."

X

Imagine arriving on the eighth planet. Imagine vastly more water than land. Deep blue water. Great white architecture pierced up through the islands. Imagine the welcome party, how it was made up of pretty youths in white robes. Imagine a place with no thought of war. Now imagine arriving as a soldier, from a planet of viciously whipping winds that hardened its most delicate citizens.

It was like a mirage.

Haruka travelled separately from her family. It was an option she had taken with both with guilt and a sincere belief in no alternative. She needed to focus. There really was no benefit in developing emotional attachments now. Time was relentless. She couldn't be wasteful with her attention. Well, it was that, and she had grown to fear an imagined look from her siblings. She was a stranger to them. But worse than that would be a look of disappointment from her parents. Her father. She wasn't confident that anything she could achieve would be sufficient to ultimately defend against –

"May I help with your belongings?" A young man offered his thin arms, beaming. His accent looped his words together in a feminine manner.

She stepped out into the foreign territory.

"I haven't any." She responded

"Then I will guide you to your resting place."

"Can you not describe its location?"

"There are many guests," he laughed, "There are a many, many people gathered to celebrate the union of your esteemed brother and our princess."

"Then you are aware of my identity." She narrowed her eyes at the guide.

"We are here to make you welcome."

"You're here to prevent inopportune meetings."

"I? No. Of course we wouldn't be so rude as to…"

"I like to walk in silence. You might too. It will save you inventing truths."

"Yes, guardian."

His smile dissolved then. Nonetheless, she felt something like pride at being referred to as 'guardian.' If this stranger could believe it, perhaps she could too? She inhaled, tilted her chin a little more skyward and indulged in a moment of vanity. Her appearance was novel. She was in her bronze and cobalt armour and the heavy cape worn in ceremony. In truth it was relatively novel for herself. So many days had been spent in garb designed with function over form. Yes, the boots were stiff, but they had an attractive shine. And anyway, her sword was there, glinting at her hip. They could consider it ceremonial, but it would never be to her.

Several people with the appearance of locals seemed a little stunned by her passing through. Not warring people. Did they even forge weapons here? It didn't matter. All they needed was to bend matrimonial jewellery. Or was to be supplied by their side? Who cared.

Behind her something of a commotion was brewing. A new arrival. The locals were forming a grand assembly to welcome the visitor.

"We should continue to keep pace," the guide spoke again. "Let us not miss the first course of – "

"I don't need stories." She picked up her stride. "It's her, isn't it?"

"Guardian?"

"It's fine. I won't meet with her."

Promises, promises. How easily made and casually fractured.

Haruka was allocated a suite at the highest level of a grand tower. The rooms around her had been left intentionally empty. The guide had elected to divulge that the diviner of Neptune was to be hosted in one of the subterranean chambers. On the lowest level, to be precise. Very creative.

"Doesn't seem befitting the guardian of Neptune, sent down to a dungeon?"

"Dungeon? Oh no. We don't employ such a penal code as your… never mind." The guide was evidently itching to leave. "Our most revered philosophers are hosted in chambers below sea level. We keep the spaces clear for meditation and such. There are even pools in some."

"Guess I'll never know."

"May I assist with anything further? A messenger will be sent to invite you to the dining hall."

"No need, that's fine."

"Or we could send up…?"

"I'll sleep, I think. Thank you for your time."

The man wasn't to know what a luxury sleep was. No scrolls to learn or training to be done. In this place, watched and wondered at, there really was nowhere to go and nothing to do.

X

The air had a familiar scent. The crowd had bought tears to Michiru's eyes. It had been long years since she had even seen so many people at once. And they were here for her! She took a moment to settle her breathing before greeting them with a wave. She took and pressed the hands offered to her. Assistants gathered gifts and tokens that were held out. Such items should really be checked for concealed danger.

She was lead down to her room. It was gorgeous. The walls were beautifully carved, the light was soft, aqua-toned, the bed was… vast. Particularly considering her unofficial quarantine.

"I'm not sure I should say," offered her attendant, "but the guardian of Uranus has elected to remain in her chamber. You would be quite free to join in the banquet this evening. Your family – your mother especially – has expressed her eagerness to see you again."

It all felt like too much. Too many people. Such an arrival event already!

"She is keeping to herself?" Michiru asked simply.

"She may be tired from the travel. The different atmosphere can also unsteady visitors."

"Of course."

"Truly, everyone will be joining this evening. I expect the tower will be quite vacant."

"Oh, it seems unfair of me to take advantage of our guest's predicament. I think I will remain here until the ceremony. It seems most respectful. Then she may be free to explore better. Perhaps that message might be delivered to her?"

"If you are sure, it shall be done."

"I am sure."

Michiru took a moment to allocate her garments to preserve their appearance. Despite her trepidation, she had been very much looking forward to a return to her family, to the attendance of such a splendid event. A pretty array of cosmetics was displayed before a large mirror. She tested their scent and noted with a pang that one was reminiscent of her mother's. There was time. There would be time.

It was later when an apologetic attendant arrived with fine food on a silver tray.

"I hope it hasn't cooled too greatly. The distance to… down here… from the kitchen was rather…"

"You are very kind," Michiru answered, "Thank you for your trouble."

She was not at all prepared for rich morsels, hot or cold. Such a calm space, but she couldn't find any peace. It all felt off-centre. The energy of so many people in one space, she couldn't stop the heightened feeling washing over her. No focus.

The tower would be empty.

It would be the easiest thing to transport herself up a few levels. Only to the balcony. If just to feel that same energy…

X

Haruka lay back on the strange bed and stared at the relief on the ceiling. She couldn't sleep at all. How does one sleep without exercise? Where was she to exercise when she had been virtually invited to be a prisoner? Certainly she was curious to glimpse at these people – her family – the family they would be connected to. But all this care over placements and avoidance?

There was a noise outside. Steps! She'd hoped the servants had given up on offering her their trays for the evening. Perhaps not. The steps went away.

How sad to visit a place and never know it.

The tower would be empty.

It would be the simplest thing to step out into the night air for just a moment…

X

"But you are beautiful." It was the first thing whispered when they saw each other. Who had said it first could not be known, but it occurred in this way. A sudden intake of breath. A blink. A second glance. A sense of something at once utterly unusual and totally familiar.

It is you.

It is you.


	9. Chapter 9

"May I touch your face?" She says in her looping accent.

"My face?"

"I have seen and not seen you for so long…" says the woman in white robes.

"You may."

Her fingertips are careful; her palm is smooth and cool in the evening. Haruka closes her eyes. Does she deserve such a gentle gesture? There is only sweet-scented air to accompany them. She can't detect another soul. It is a strange and marvelous thing, this feeling.

What to say to an apparition made real?

"I sense I have been pulled towards you for a long time," Haruka speaks finally, perhaps haltingly. "I was warned against you. Still. With each warning was this belief… I don't know how to explain."

"I cannot imagine never meeting you." Says the girl.

"By what name shall I call you?"

"Michiru," she whispers. "And your name sounds as though it was formed on a breeze."

"It does?"

"Haruka," she says in her best Uranian accent.

"I think I am not used to hearing it without a command to follow."

The woman – _Michiru_ – laughs lightly. "Then I shall speak it so until becomes normal, Haruka."

"I don't know that your voice ever will…" The hand drops from her cheek.

"Oh, you are as charming as the stories promise."

"There are stories? Who tells them?"

"I expect they are born in taverns. Such stories take wing, you know?"

There is a strange flood of guilt. Haruka looks away and out to the white stars. This Michiru is terribly quick. Terribly beautiful too. She hadn't felt so off-guard since her early days of training. She swallows and looks back.

"I hope you don't believe it all."

"Oh, I think you are blushing, soldier?"

"Am I?" She raises a hand to her face, then regrets the femininity of the response.

"I may be some months younger than you, but I am wise enough to listen to the salient aspects of a story."

"Oh… oh, that's good then."

"I am not a stranger to women. Or men."

"I…"

"I understand you prefer women."

"That's…"

"Oh, I wish you could observe yourself now."

"You're teasing me."

"I'm sorry," she says. "I'm sorry Haruka. I can't quite believe you are right here. I have waited… I just - in part - just want to laugh. I feel I might cry. You are finally here."

"You expected me?"

"I expected someone. I had a feeling it might be you, my soldier."

Michiru is like a sorceress. Her embrace is cool and uninvited. There is a white flash. And then they are not on the balcony at all. Haruka's heart starts at this. They are in the dark. Not dark. Not total dark, there are glowing emerald lights. There is a shimmer against a pillar. Haruka clenches her fists and closes her eyes to adjust them to the dark after the vivid light.

They are inside a room. A large room. With no windows.

"This is where I have been banished," Michiru laughs, "we are many levels below the ground. I thought you might wish to see."

"I'm struggling to see." Haruka admits.

"Be patient." Michiru takes her hand then. "I will lead you."

She steps gingerly over uneven terrain. Their steps generate an echo. There is water. The green light grows stronger. Of course she would have a pool! Had she sent her messages from it?

"I'm rarely here." Michiru answers as though following her thoughts. "This is only a guest room. I live on Triton."

"I know." Haruka says quickly. "This would be a strange cave to live in."

Michiru laughs again. Haruka's eyes have adjusted, but she does not admit it, lest the hand in hers were to leave. _Lead me,_ she wishes. The pool is illuminated and large. It is watched over by carvings of women.

"Swim with me?" It is a request and an incantation all at once.

Haruka nods. She pulls off her heavy attire in the quick and practiced way that left it orderly; folded well and easy to put on again. She stands straight and breathes in to look at the water and wonder at its temperature. She tries to ignore the feeling of eyes on her. She turns. Michiru is smiling slowly, she has removed only her silver sandals that lie haphazardly by the edge of the pool. She gathers her hair in both hands.

"There is a clasp behind my shoulders," she says "would you assist me?"

Haruka nods once more. She steps behind her hostess and almost flinches when her finger grazes the skin beside the fastening. The dress falls to the floor. And her back, her body in its entirety, is naked. She drops her hair again and turns in thanks.

Haruka, panicked, steps again to the edge of the pool and dives in as cleanly as her racing heart will allow. She swims, arm over arm, lungs close to bursting, until she reaches a point towards the end. She treads water and turns back to watch Michiru descend deliberately into the pool. In a moment her head disappears below the surface. She is swift. The water above is only slightly agitated by her shadow. Haruka's breathing cannot slow. With a sudden splash Michiru's head and shoulders break the surface. Her hair is tossed back. She gasps, in an instant looking pained then again with laughter in her eyes. Had she been showing off?

They hover in the water just breathing, just watching.

"Are you trying to escape my prison?" Michiru asks.

Haruka swims in closer. Closer so that they are less than a body apart. "You are leading." She answers.

Michiru breathes a little slower, a little slower again.

"Haruka," she asks, "may I touch your –"

"Yes." She says pulling the woman's hips toward her, touching lips to her neck. "Yes, yes, yes."

X

She awakens after light breaks. She is in her own room. She is not alone. She moves her head on a pillow and alerts the dreamer beside her.

"We are in my prison now." She says trailing her fingers along shoulder that has become familiar.

"You asked to be transported here, to try all of the beds, do you remember?"

"I remember."

"You asked to visit a great many places, the field by the waterfall, the lagoon…"

"Yes."

"It takes some energy, all of those journeys; I fear I am quite depleted." She sighs.

" _Are_ you?"

"Now I think _you_ are teasing _me_." She holds an expression of curiosity as she reaches for Haruka's hair.

"Perhaps." She watches the expression. "And today my brother will marry your sister. Where will that leave us, I wonder?"

"Forgotten."

"I will not forget you."

"No. I cannot. But I think I must go. There will be anxiety if I am suspected of wandering in a city hosting ruthless Uranians."

"I might see you from the other side of the hall."

"I will be watching."

"And we can listen to their promises to each other. To be true. To be willing…"

"But they won't promise to love each other."

"It is a foolish promise to make." Haruka answers, now combing her fingers through Michiru's hair, "Love simply is, or it isn't. It cannot be promised into existence."

"Perhaps," says Michiru, and closes her eyes that are revealing the promises she wishes to demand. Haruka reads them and changes the subject.

"What will you tell your minders if your absence is discovered?"

"Oh them?" She rolls to her side and props her head on her hand and the sheets slide down her body. "I will say I met a beautiful soldier. One who was as strong as a storm; as gentle as a breeze; as insistent, as close and then distant as the wind… I think you are blushing again. Ah, Haruka, even after last night you blush?"

"I cannot see my face. Only yours."

"A shame. What would you say, were you found out?"

"That I was sleeping."

" _Ha_ ruka."

"That I must have been dreaming. That I was drawn to a sorceress; I was captured in an enchantment. I will say that it must surely have been a dream because in all my waking moments," She shakes her head, feeling a sting at her eyes that is not helped when a hand cups her face.

"I will say," She swallows, "that she was like an answer to a prayer that I had never dared to speak."

X

Now think – not think – _imagine_. Capture the image in your mind's eye. Hold it there. Hold it as vividly as you can and as long as you can.

It is this: A thousand clear and glinting fragments suspended in the air. A late sun filtering through each; stretching and magnifying their size across space. Each of these thousand sending a multitude of shimmering light fractals. Hold strong to that delicate picture. Keep it safe.

Treasure it. Because it is not a dream. It is the awakening of a recollection.

Oh, but go back, go back, back back to before.

When the sun was new.

"Haruka-papa?"

"Mm?"

Hotaru was eating her breakfast painfully slowly. She didn't really care for breakfast cereal, even with soy milk. Still – and Setsuna agreed – as their daughter was growing ever upward she seemed to be stretching thinner and thinner. Probably normal kid stuff, but the calories in chocolate-flavored cereal seemed beneficial. Anyhow, Hotaru was distracted.

"Can you tell me about the atmosphere of – "

"Two more spoonfuls and you can ask your question."

"But _two_?"

"Yes two. Big ones."

"Mn Kmn." She obliged.

Haruka stirred her own bowl and regretted not going to the grocer on the way home the night before. Not much of a welcome home. Setsuna might go though. If she wrote a list? Maybe when she was on the way to the airport. She looked in the top drawer for a pencil.

"How come you're not eating yours?"

"'Cos it's gross…" she said absently.

Hotaru looked up triumphantly, gesturing with a milky spoon. Haruka grabbed the pencil, recognized her error, then the error of her opponent.

"You said it was a health food!"

"You already asked your question!" Haruka answered. "Two more mouthfuls if you have a different one."

"But I…!"

"That's the deal. Take it or leave it."

She wasn't certain whether her daughter had learned how to curse or if the grumbly munching just gave that impression. Not important. She wrote on the back of a receipt: Eggs, Bread, Salad (the sesame dressing kind)…

"I'v gt my qustn!" Hotaru's mouth was still half full.

"Okay."

"Is it true that the atmosphere on Uranus and also Neptune has sooo much pressure that it rains diamonds?"

"Eh?"

"Don't trick me into a new question!"

"If it rained diamonds I don't know that your Michiru-mama would have ever left."

"So you bought her that ring."

"New question! Two mouthfuls."

"That's not a question. I already know."

"Why can't you just finish your breakfast?"

"Two mouthfuls." Her daughter commanded. "Or answer a new question."

"Go ahead." Haruka looked forlornly at the bowl before her.

"Can I see it again?"

"Sure, sure." She reached into her jacket pocket for the velvet box.

Hotaru opened it with exaggerated care as though she were Indiana Jones discovering treasure.

"Four diamonds." She murmured to herself. "One, two for me and Setsuna-mama; one two for Haruka-papa and Michiru-mama. One bi-ig middle one that means we're a family."

It was very cute, really. Setsuna walked in toweling her hair.

"Are you helping your Haruka-papa practice her proposal?"

"If you want to ask a question you have to have two spoons of cereal." Haruka retorted.

"Hmm," Setsuna eyed Hotaru's breakfast skeptically, "I'll pass."

"I'm disorganized," Haruka began.

"What's new?

"Can you get some things from the store while I'm at the airport?"

"I'm not buying wedding catering…"

"For the last time, it's _not_ a proposal."

"It's a diamond ring purchased from a jeweler specializing in…"

"Oi, you've been watching too many cheesy movies."

"Haruka! You're a coward."

"C'mon, why call it that? You know we can't do anything official when…"

"No imagination, Tenoh."

"Yeesh," Haruka ran her hand through her hair, "I haven't seen her while she's been on tour. I've missed her. It's a nice piece of jewelry. She might've even bought it for herself?"

"She didn't though."

"…no."

"Then what are you going to say?" Setsuna affected a deeper voice, "So, y'know, Michiru, I – uh - got this for you – but it doesn't mean anything!"

Hotaru laughed, half coughing on her cereal.

"I don't sound like that."

"So say what you mean."

"I don't know what the right words are."

"You will."

X

She weaves through traffic and makes it to arrivals as the board flashes up with "customs processing." The time moves slowly. There are families and taxi-drivers gathering around the silver rails. The cabin crew passes through with business-like nonchalance. Passengers follow rolling out, gaze moving across the sea of faces to latch onto something – someone – familiar. They do. She doesn't.

Then she does.

It's the hair, really, it is perfect in a crowd. She is perfect in the crowd of strangers. She sees that she is found and her lips stretch into a smile.

X

Haruka weaves back the way they came, car boot laden with luggage and gifts, air filled with stories of the beauty of Europe, the foibles of fellow passengers, the words to fill in the time since they last spoke.

They are so close to home.

They are rounding the cliff by the sea.

The truck approaching has lost control.

And now, in memory, time moves slowly. Now she calculates that they will collide or be forced to drop into the sea far, far below. She is braking. She is pulling the steering wheel to the left so that it will be the driver's side that takes the hit. That if one of them is to return home – but there is an arm on her wrist – one so strong, she doesn't recognize it as Michiru's. But it is. And it forces the car to veer off the road. They break the metal barrier.

They are airborne.

She turns to watch Michiru's face, that is frightened, that is uncertain. There is something she must ask her, isn't there? Before the airbags engage there is a moment where she watches the windscreen. It shatters. There are a thousand clear and glinting fragments suspended in the air. A late sun filters through each; stretching and magnifying their size across space. Each of these thousand sending a multitude of shimmering light fractals. And it is as if it were raining diamonds.


	10. Chapter 10

"And you take this daughter of a foreign land to be yours? To be as yours despite the calls of your own people?"

"I shall."

"And you? You would take this son of a foreign land to be yours? To be as yours despite the calls of your own people?"

"I shall."

Michiru was unsure as to why this was the particular line that stung her eyes. She felt such a promise to be true – if not in the halting assertions of her sister or her soon-to-be-brother-in-law – then in some other version of memory or premonition.

She thought: I understand this, this irrational assertion.

She thought: though I cannot make such a promise in this lifetime I know, _I know,_ that I will. I feel – I anticipate – another life for myself.

One when I might make such terrible promises such as to forsake all others.

Although, this wasn't just a premonition; she saw the edge of such madness with the side of a face she must never touch again. The side of the face of the daughter or Uranus who would not turn back. Her fixed jaw. Her unwavering posture. _Only look at me a moment. Only show me last night wasn't a fleeting dream._

She closed her eyes and imagined. Here she was before an aged promise taker. Here they both were. Except she would only really need this one woman.

"I will take you, forsaking all others." She would say this without prompting.

It would be the one place and time it would be acceptable.

 _My penance is to be forever prepared to lose her._

My weakness is that I can never let her leave without me.

 _So, stay._

 _Stay._

 _As long as you have life._

 _Stay in a world we may be together._

 _I don't know if you will ever understand…_

 _but I can live with that._

 _Just… not without you._

She shook her head.

Her sister and brother-in-law were facing the gathered audience, blushing and smiling.

Perhaps this was the way of things. Perhaps this was how it was always…

Haruka looked over at her.

Such a look.

She forgot to…

No.

She looked down. She recounted the story from soothsayers: _There would be a union between Neptune and Uranus. Such a story of love would be long remembered for lifetimes beyond imagining. Such a love as defied the constraints of space and time._

Now was neither the space nor the time that they should be.

And yet.

 _And Yet._

Haruka watched her for the entire procession from the Uranian side from the ceremony chambers. Michiru's eyes did not leave hers. It was the ceremony they could not have with each other. It was one they were promised by fate.

Yes, two girls.

Yes, two that must be kept separate.

Politics moved slower than philosophy. She knew – and her superiors knew – that the union of today was not the match foretold.

 _Oh, Haruka. Do you feel it?_

 _Can't you notice any sooner?_

X

I'm swimming.

 _No._

In a room.

 _No._

I'm trapped inside my mind; my mind has cast the room into obscurity. It is drowned in thick black. I can't open my eyes. I can't feel the world beyond. _Your songs remind me of swimming_. Had that been on the radio?

What was the next line?

What radio?

I am not alone, I find. I am – literally – beside myself. Or Neptune is. She is lying alongside me, matching my length, turning to look at me, but not ready to answer.

"Michiru." She says, and reaches for my hair.

"Are you leaving me?" I ask her.

"I don't know," she says. "Are _you_ leaving me?"

"How could I?"

"Oh… you don't understand yet…"

"You mean if I die? Am I dying?"

"Do you want to?"

"I don't think so – _no_ – where would that leave…?"

"Michiru."

"No, don't let me die."

"I can't control that. You were hurt very badly."

"Then… don't leave me. Please? I don't know who I am if I am split from you. I didn't know that you could ever be separate from me."

"Rebirth is such a messy thing."

"What do you mean?"

"Our souls travelled over a great distance, a great many life times. We don't simply enter into a single life to be reborn; we are like the coral that breaks down and salts the shores of every continent; we are like stardust: sprinkling and touching and being breathed in by those destined for the stars, and those destined for obscurity."

"You're talking in riddles."

"Riddles offer possibility. Possibility is the best you can hope for."

"You're unkind."

"Come here." She moves forward and pulls her white arms around me and I cannot help but mirror her. _This is how it feels to embrace myself_ , I think. And I feel the generosity of her chest, and the fragility of her ribs and the bones of her back. _I am so slight. Does Haruka feel me and find that I am…?_

"Haruka!" I call like an objection. "Don't let me die. Don't let me be where she isn't."

"You feel she is alive?"

My eyes water. "I can't feel her at all. Don't abandon me."

"There is nothing to fear. If you die you will lose your memory of her. Be calm. Be still."

"My soul will remember her. Yours will. Even with without memories our souls will feel it. I am certain. A deep, inexplicable longing."

Neptune signs. She shimmers. She looks me in the eye. "I don't know who I am without you either. I would be less."

"Thank you." I say.

"I love her too." She says, "though it is difficult."

"It is difficult not to love her."

"Yes."

"Hold onto me?"

X

"Michiru…!" She awakens. She is in a chair and her neck hurts. She is not in – wait – she is not in her own room.

She is not in her own room and the room is empty.

The bandaged girl is gone.

The girl is gone that means the girl was taken that means the staff had entered that means the staff hadn't removed her because…

Well, they _should_ have removed her unless…

No.

Unless she was entitled to be in this room…

… because she was 'next of kin'.

"Michiru." She whispers to the dancing curtain.

"Michiru!" She stands and already the footsteps are hurrying for her. But the awfulness shoots through her. Her head pounds; the lights dim; she falls. Her knees are… there's pain but…

"Ms Tenoh…!"

They tell her it was only minutes that she was out. They are worried about a superficial cut on her leg. She is trying not to yell at them. She is trying to breathe properly.

"Where is she?"

"Ms Tenoh, if you could just – "

"WHERE IS SHE?!"

"Please, if you push yourself – "

"Damnit! _Goddamnit_! Can you get away from me and give me a real answer?"

The nurses look between each other for confirmation.

"Kaioh Michiru, OK? I remember her. And who she is to me. And that I have RIGHTS to information. If _you_ can't say anything, can you _damn well_ get someone who will?"

"I'll go." One scampered.

She breathed, focusing on a spot on the floor that didn't make her want to throw a punch in its direction.

"Ms Tenoh, will you let me look at that knee. I think we may need stitches."

"I _don't_ care about my _knee_."

"It's my job to care about you knee."

"Then you're fired." She scowled at the nurse who had two hands on her left calf.

"Ironically, you don't have that authority."

"Ironi – ow!"

"I'm just going to disinfect it first."

It's hard to recall, sometimes, the order of things that go into important events. But the doctor had arrived with reasonable haste; had told her there was – had been - a surgery. An unexpected event in the night. Ms Kaioh had gone into cardiac arrest. _Would she be fine?_ It was hard to say. _But she would make it?_ _They expected her to make it, right?_ The situation was delicate. They would keep her updated. _They would? Even if it meant waking her? Even if it meant interrupting a_ – Yes, they would.

Nothing more to say then.

Nothing to confirm.

X

Setsuna arrived with Hotaru. She was still shaking, doubled over in tears when they stood at her door. Her visitors looked shocked. She wasn't sure how she looked in return.

"Hime-chan." She managed.

On cue her usually shy daughter ran over, leapt up and clambered onto her lap.

"You remember me now?" She murmured into her neck.

It choked Haruka again. She felt her spine, her lungs spasm with terrible regret. She wept soundlessly and the forgiving child in her arms remained.

"I'm sorry I forgot you… you are so, so precious to me. Do you know?"

"I know." She said looking up seriously. "I missed you a lot."

She breathed in shakily. "Thank you for waiting."

"You're welcome." She said, comically automatically.

Haruka laughed. Setsuna interjected, "Good manners, Hotaru."

Haruka looked up to the other blurry adult in the room.

"Setsuna… I don't know how to…"

"Oh, if you want to apologise for implying that you and I had been…"

"…Been what?"

"Wait. You don't remember?"

"I remember. I just wanted to hear you say it." She grinned slowly.

"…"

"Do you think Setsuna-mama is blushing?" She asked Hotaru.

Hotaru nodded and giggled.

"Hey, two on one isn't fair. This argument is lopsided without…"

 _They were without._

"Yes…" Haruka looked out of the window. "And if I had left earlier or if there had been a cab… if we'd reached that spot two minutes later…"

"You cannot conquer time." Setsuna said. And at the beginnings of a pleading look from Haruka, "Nor can I. You know that."

X

'I'll love you till the ocean

Is folded and hung up to dry

And the seven stars go squawking

Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,

For in my arms I hold

The Flower of the Ages,

And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city

Began to whirr and chime:

'O let not Time deceive you,

You cannot conquer Time.

"How did you come by these words?" She asked.

The daughter of Neptune had found her after the ceremony. Michiru. Once again she had embraced her and transported them both to a strange new location. They were quite alone. Her boots sunk into white sand. It was a cove, one overlooked by severe black cliffs and fringed with a violently frothing tide.

"My people will occasionally scavenge treasures from Plutonians."

"They are poets?"

"They have Time Pirates. I suspect a great many of our architectural designs have originally been illegal acquisitions."

"I don't understand."

"Really, Haruka…there is an aspect of you that is so honest… it makes it difficult not to kiss you."

The waves crashed disconsolately. The light was dying. _Could I not conquer time? Could I not bargain for another day few hours?_

"You're calling me naïve."

"I am."

"Then educate me."

Michiru folded at the knee and reached for her hand as instruction to do the same. The beach was cool. The sand was fine and fell through her fingers quite quickly. She would be leaving that evening. She didn't want it confirmed that this would be the last chance to…

"There are rebel factions from Pluto who disobey the laws of time travel.' Michiru looked out to the water. "They steal examples of future designs from cities that are thousands of years ahead."

 _Certainly not. Unregulated time travel?_ Haruka snapped from her distraction. "But the penalty for breaking the laws of…"

"The rewards are compelling, too. Future designs are highly valuable. They can make the difference between winning a war or… not."

"You're quite serious."

"I am."

"Then we should change the law…!"

Michiru smiled and lay back. Her hair spread around her. The deeper sky did an injustice to the true blue of her eyes. She laughed. As though it were still open to either of them, "I really do want to kiss you."

"I don't know why I put up with your insults," Haruka dipped her head.


	11. Chapter 11

"Himessshan?" Her eyes were unfocused

"Haruka? Are you OK?" Pluto's voice. "Is it your head? You're slurring – "

"Ss not. Ss OK. They – all the nurseses gave me a – the injecsshun – they wanme tobe calm – they wanme to – notto injure mysself."

"They've given you...?" She picked up a chart and scowled at it.

Hotaru climbed up onto the bed and tucked her head against Haruka's chest. She had a book again.

"Wasshyu reading at school?"

"Papa, you sound like that crazy man at the park," Hotaru bit her lip.

"I hadsome funny medicine." She managed to articulate.

"I don't like it." Setsuna said from the foot of the bed. "I'm going to talk to the staff."

"Mm. They want me to sleep and eat. I think this makes me sleep." Haruka shook her head, hoping to remove the fuzz of it. "Tell me a story?" she asked Hotaru.

"A story for sleeping?"

"Yessplease."

"We are doing the myths of the world. These are from the Mediterranean."

"Love the Medi-terramean."

"OK." Said Hotaru. "Sisyphus was a determined man who could never win."

X

It was, and it was not, a surprise to return to Castle Miranda to find the doors to the training room forced open, and the pool drained of water, and filled with sand. Haruka knelt along the pit's edge and scooped a handful of coral dust.

"Will he drain the rivers too?" She asked the air. "Will he dry out the seas and burn away the rain?"

"I will do whatever is needed to protect the people I am bound to." Her father spoke from behind her.

"They don't need saving from me." She answered.

"And you don't need an explanation from me."

"I was followed, then." She stood, brushing the sand from her fingers.

"Naturally. You were a security risk." He approached.

"But no one intervened."

"Our soldiers don't have the same… resources as the daughter of Neptune."

"Yes." Haruka opened her palm, stretched it forward and willed a small crackling ball of energy to hover and twist in the air. "The abilities of a mere _soldier_ rather pale in comparison."

"I assume you are wise enough not to threaten a King…"

"Now, now, why would a _guardian_ waste time on threatening a _lowly King?_ " The ball grew suddenly, pulsing with her words, expanding to the size of a boulder.

The King stepped back. The guardian took a breath. She allowed the orb to shrink down to the size of a fist, then snap into nothing again.

"Your powers have grown too." He spoke.

"Why are you here? Your message speaks for itself."

"I needed to understand." He said. "Why in all the worlds would you be so reckless? Tell me. Will you be a liability in this war?"

"I?" She laughed, pushed past him, and strode out of the room and across to grip balustrade that separated her from the expanse of dark sky. "I am your best hope." She answered.

"After the war," the King's tone had changed to something quieter, more plaintive, "If there is a woman or man, or a _thousand of them_ that you wish to…"

She silenced her father with a look that could melt steel.

"You still think I live to see the other side of this war." She said to the stars.

"I _must_ believe. If a soldier - "

"Don't." She shook her head. "Just don't. We will not see each other again. I have no intent to move to Castle Triton, and she will never come here. I don't need you to upset the architecture of my gymnasium."

"But why…?"

"But. Why. _What_. Why her?"

"If it were anyone – _anyone_ – else…!"

"Oh really? Say I was inclined to spend time with a man from my sparring days?"

"Have you… such an inclination?"

"Don't be ridiculous. No more than you do."

"I don't think my inclinations have been discussed." Her father scratched his chin.

"Let's keep it that way." She shot back.

"Haruka," he stepped in again. "If this is to get back at me, or…"

"It isn't." She signed. "It isn't, and it isn't something _you_ can understand."

She found herself blinking. The air was cold. The stars were impassive.

"Certainly I won't if you don't tell me."

"And nor will you ever. You and I are very different."

"Tell me and I will go."

"Fine." She said.

"Fine." He confirmed.

Haruka stepped further again from the King and looked out in the direction she had travelled from.

"She and I are not strangers to each other. We have been connected since birth."

"What?"

"Ask your wife." She rolled her eyes, "and don't interrupt me. When I was younger – "

"You're still a child."

" _Seriously_. When I was younger she – Michiru – used her abilities to manifest before me. As you have _clearly_ discovered, she works through the medium of water. I believe they once used mirrors – or such can be done between two who understand the art. You may ask your wife about that. When I was older and on my own and close to… when I fell into a kind of despair, that's when she appeared again. She has been pulling me on… somehow… since then.

I used to think my curse for bringing about the war was to be despised by our people. I used to think that that was the penance to be served. But it isn't. My punishment is to live knowing her and being separate from her.

I am not a child; I was never allowed the luxury. I don't anticipate I will spend much time in adulthood either. But I wanted to see her – once – properly. She is like me. She has been brought up to be separate, alone, to be stripped of her choices.

She and I are weapons.

But not to each other."

X

 _Cassandra was a woman who would see the fall of her people, but never be believed._

She is swimming in black, still. Neptune doesn't swim alongside her. Perhaps she has left to enter a new life. Or perhaps she has tucked herself back with Michiru's soul?

Her body is suffering.

Perhaps it is no longer fit to host Neptune. She feels a kind of betrayal at the thought. It was rather unfair, wasn't it? To surrender her life, to take on such risks as she had, and then to be abandoned when her body was failing. Had she known, would she have…?

It was a stupid question, wasn't it? Of course she would have. She always would. Always to be with that particular person… It was the simple thing in all of this complexity. But then, would the chain be broken if Neptune were to leave? She recognised her body responding to the panic. It wasn't good. There was nothing good in this. And then… no… there was a… could it be?

A sense of something beyond her body. A something familiar. Calming. The panic was fading…

X

She awoke early in the morning. The hospital was silent but for its usual mechanical utterances. Her head thumped, but it was clear of the fog that had dominated the afternoon. Had it been the morning too? Setsuna must have given them the hard word. She expected to receive a different version of "the hard word" on the next visit. Of course it was difficult to sleep. And why should she be interested in eating? Michiru was in a coma, distant as the constellations.

But she had been returned to the room across the hall. The bandages were no longer covering her head. Her hair fell across her pillow, just the way it used to... Haruka struggled to the seat at the bed side and watched the lights of the machines, green, blue, illuminate the ridges of her knuckles and veins.

Her working, flexing, conscious body.

It was something that they had said that really ate at her. Had it been the surgeon? Yes. He had been so calm and earnest that it hadn't left any space in the room to challenge his statements.

"Her body is struggling." He'd said. "It could be that Ms Kaioh is able to remain in this state – supported – for a number of years."

"But if I woke up after only a few days…"

"Ms. Tenoh, it's not that it's impossible, it's just… improbable."

"But she's still alive."

"She is."

"And she could be alive for years, and years and – "

"Again, yes. But if that life is one supported by machines… it can be very hard on a body. It's not the way we're meant to live. There can be infections. There can be a myriad of forms of distress that we've hardly been able to research fully because… well, the human brain is an amazing thing."

"I'm not interested in your research."

"Ms Tenoh, what I'm saying is – as we respect your position as Ms Kaioh's next of kin - "

"It's a lousy time to be given such respect – "

" – because of that – we will act on your wishes, should it be needed, to let Ms Kaioh go."

"I can't believe this…!"

"Ms Tenoh, it's not an immediate matter but – "

"I CANNOT believe this!" She'd grabbed his shirt then.

"Ms – nurse! I need some assistance…!"

I retrospect it was surprising she hadn't been kicked out of the facility. Or transferred somewhere more… secure. She stroked Michiru's hair. Michiru didn't open her eyes. Didn't frown slightly in her way, have a moment of confusion, then smile a sleepy 'good morning'.

"I'd sing to you about a King's daughter, but I don't know the words." She said softly. "I'd show you Hotaru's picture books, but you won't open your eyes. Will you?"

Haruka breathed and watched the body before her.

"I miss your eyes."

She reached into her shirt pocket.

"I'm going to give you this now." She slipped the ring onto the too-thin finger. "I spent too long waiting for a right time."

 _You cannot conquer time._

"This is a piece to jewellery. Please keep it. It's for you to know that I am bound to you in this life. That I have been bound to you in lifetimes befo – "She swallowed. Her breath caught. The moon watched them.

"Kaioh Michiru, if you are hanging on by a thread then… then know I am the one holding on to the other end of it. And I want to say that I will never, _never_ let go… but if it's what you need…" The tears were hot on her cheeks.

"If that's what you need… I won't be selfish. And If you don't remember me in the next life, I will remember you. And I will find you again and again… but for now, take this ring."

And she lay her head down beside the terribly silent girl and let her tears dry on the fabric of hospital sheets.

X

She'd found herself returned to her room again the next morning. The doctors had to do their rounds. Tests. She was in no mood to argue anymore. She watched a breakfast and a lunch tray steam then turn cool. The staff had become careful not to argue with her too. There was some kind of an armistice after Setsuna's intervention, she supposed. She found herself impatient for Setsuna's visit so that it would be over again, and she could relax into nothing and wait for more news of nothing.

At 3pm the figure in the door was not Setsuna's. Haruka did a double take. The elegant posture, the expensive handbag, it was almost as if –

No. Of course not.

"Ms Tenoh." I was glad to hear of your recovery.

"Mrs. Kaioh?"

"I've just been in visiting my daughter – "

"Really, has she…?"

"No change yet. I like to pretend she's just dreaming, you know?"

"Yes." Haruka answered soberly. "I like to imagine that too."

"You should know we intend to bring the full force of the law down on that truck driver. And the company. Our lawyers are looking into whether the tyre manufacturer might be liable – "

"Mrs Kaioh, I'm so sorry. If we had left the airport only a minute or two later – "

"Stop. Please. I won't hear it."

"I'm just… sorry."

Michiru's mother moved into the room and stood by the window. She toyed with the silk scarf around her neck.

"She's wearing a ring?" she said finally.

"I… you can remove it if you prefer."

"I'm sure she'd never forgive me."

"Oh?"

"If she found out you'd finally got up the nerve to come out and make such a proposal – "

"Well, I mean, it's not really a proposal if – "

"I think the standard etiquette demands asking the mother and father of the bride first, doesn't it?"

"Uh… given it's a _non_ -standard situation…"

"Well, what is your intent?"

"Mrs. Kaioh, I hadn't expected to… I was going to let her decide how to… or what it should mean. I think."

"You think?"

"I do."

"Wise." She laughed suddenly. "You know her well."

"… Yes… it _has_ been a few years now…"

"And little Hotaru, how's she doing?"

"Ha! Not so little day by day. She'll be here later today, I think. If you wanted to…"

"I'd like that. Very much."


	12. Chapter 12

"You're back!"

"I am."

"I wasn't expecting you… unless…"

The figure of Neptune shimmered, faltered against the silky black of unconsciousness. Her eyes held all the sadness of the ages. She did not let her gaze slip.

"I'm here, Michiru."

"To say goodbye."

Her head dipped slowly to nod once as though words were too cumbersome for the moment. She reached out her hand in its white glove and her fingers were warm.

"Will you grant me a wish?" Michiru asked.

"I can try."

"Will you allow me to remember?"

"Remember? You mean…? There are so many painful things…"

"I would remember them all. If only to hold her face in my thoughts a moment longer."

"But it is cruel."

"I have endured worse."

"Oh, Michiru…"

" _Please._ "

"You would have me tell you of the moment you felt her despair from across the universe?"

"Don't spare me."

"How, her eyes that had watched the darkness of armies descend upon her own world had grown distracted? How her very posture had assumed a resigned aspect by the time you three met. When you truly had no choice but to meet? How your hope spiked and dipped with her demeanour? How you felt the guilt that accompanied the knowledge that you could have forsaken each and every world and its people, if only…"

"…If only she would turn to me once more with an expression of softness. Yes. I remember."

"It was a brutal time."

"I watched her die."

"We did."

"I lost her in pieces. Her taste was lost to me in the war"

"Oyster shell and cinnamon."

" - the scent of her overwhelmed by fire;"

"Cedar and sandalwood."

" - the sight of her left as I was injured;"

"Mm…that devilish challenge about her looks."

" - her voice, stolen by the wind,"

"quick and deep."

" - and her warmth… her warmth that I had known! It cooled. Her body cooled as it released her soul. Oh, Haruka."

"Haruka."

"I don't think there will come a time when I am satisfied that we have spent long enough together."

"I'm sorry."

"It isn't your fault. It is hard to have loved… to love someone through the ages."

"I have some last memories to give you."

"Thank you."

The sand glitters in the heat. The heat would be oppressive but for the blue shade of the fabric, but for the rhythmic flap of palm fronds. And her eyes are painted in black and aqua, like the wings of a tropical butterfly. Her eyes have sent men to their death. Her eyes, from beneath the shade are fixed on the distant dunes from which a cloud has formed. From the cloud a white horse has manifested. Atop of it is a figure, equally white. A scimitar glints. The arranged guardsman stiffen, flex step forth. She can almost hear the leathery creak of their muscles. Amusing.

She, safe and calm and… intrigued. Watches the figure in white pull from his – _her_ – face the obscuring cloth. She, the daughter of royalty, watches the eyes of this challenger, watches her evident preparedness to fight each and every guardsman. Her hair is the colour of the sand on the horizon; a hue and a location that is ever untouchable.

"I want only a word with your Lady." Says the challenger.

The guards gather obscuring her sight.

"Make it a fine one." She calls from the shade, and the wall of sweat-stained men parts. "Then perhaps I shall indulge in hearing several more."

X X X

The stone floor is bitterly cold in Winter, it creeps through the gentle fabric of her slippers. She is quite sure the snow from the fields is seeping the tone from her cheeks. There isn't the faintest blush on them. Winter is no season to be in the palace. The men leave to entertain themselves with hunting. The ladies in waiting visit their mothers, fearful of sickness and filled with wistful thoughts of home comforts. The women remaining were of a nature she didn't enjoy. Of the stiff and friendless variety. Old, generally. It was detrimental to her temper to spend too long in their company.

She pulled on a fur lined coat without assistance and stepped out into the air. There was a faint and lovely sadness that she secretly enjoyed about watching to identify the last roses on the season. Will it be you? She thinks as she passes a hopeful bud. The central Summer garden is walled, its iron gates bolted shut. She walks by dragging her fingers along the bars, blinking in the flashes of light and dark and – what - ?

She stops.

Alone in the forbidden Summer garden is a girl with her hair cut like a page. The girl looks up and smiles like the sun.

X X X

"Are you sure you may permit this?"

"I don't know." The young princess cocks her head. "I just know… I understand… your heart." She beams. As though deciding she agrees with herself.

Michiru smiles back as it is polite. Does this blue-eyed child really understand her heart? How it is turned from politics and protection?

"Wait by the fountain… it's where I sometimes… I mean…" She stops herself with a nervous laugh.

"The fountain."

"It is private."

Michiru blushes, feeling perhaps her heart could be knowable.

There is something of a soft atmosphere on the moon of earth. And Earth is a beautiful planet to look out upon, she considers. If only its inhabitants weren't so vexatious. But the moon was removed. Calm. Perhaps just a little unknowing. Just a little naive. The temperature is so pleasant, one might fall into a slumber, one might hope to be awakened by a charming –

"Michiru?"

She cannot respond to the fear in her tone. She cannot because her accuser is perhaps even taller, her fringe a little long, her figure draped in fine robes of white and gold.

"Haruka."

Only a word. But she has spoken it in so many languages and with so many meanings: a greeting, an apology, a confession, a promise, a prayer…"

X X X

The air is all wrong when she awakes. All the world has awoken before her. _Damnit._ She feels it. She knows it is bad. Too much movement. Noise and movement… She watches her own white hands grabbing her own white sheets and the voices of everyone and everything become white noise. She can hear her own breathing. Her own heart. This is what happens in a crisis isn't it? The small and essential and manageable things are maintained.

She is shaking.

She can feel Setsuna is in the room. That she is looking at her. She can't – can't look up just yet. For only a few more moments, she might not look up, and in those moments there can still be hope.

And then she looks.

And Setsuna's eyes are red and – no.

No she looks away. Back to her hands.

Then she pushes herself up.

Because… she isn't a coward – no.

No, not really. Because… well, Hotaru.

She staggers, falls against the wall. Pushes up. Pushes Setsuna away. Staggers over to the doorway. To the room filled with too many doctors. So many that she can't see a –

They are saying something, maybe, but she is deaf to anymore white noise. They try to hold her arms, but she shakes them off. And then.

Then they disperse.

And her hearing returns with the word that is her own name. On the lips of the only mouth that –

"Michiru?" She whispers.

She falls to her knees beside the bed.

"I missed you." The same voice speaks again.

"You came back?"

"I never left."

"No?"

"Haruka – I – won't you sit up here with me?"

She pulls herself up and finds there is enough space for both of them. Finds the eyes of perfect blue are still open. Just a little tired.

"I was just showing the doctors my mysterious new piece of jewellery."

There are chuckles and affirmative noises behind her.

"Uh…"

"I was enquiring as to who might've been so bold as to place a ring on my finger."

"Yes…"

"I knew surely it wouldn't be you."

"Right. Surely. It's not what you - "

"Because _surely_ you wouldn't make me wait all these years only to propose whilst my mind was divorced from my body. _Surely_ you wouldn't cheat me out of properly attending my own proposal?"

"That's… absolutely… Yes. Must've been someone else."

"Well?"

"Hmm?"

"It's a gorgeous ring. Are you not going to duel this challenger? It may well be a handsome doctor."

"Well, actually…funny story… I've already fought most of these doctors…"

"Oh, I really have missed everything."

"I don't think I won though."

"Haruka."

"Yes."

"Look at me."

"No."

" _Ha_ ruka."

"I can take it back."

"I don't _want_ you to take it back."

"Then you…?"

"Then I…what…?"

"Then… why are there so many people in this room?"

"Look at me."

"I _am_ looking at you."

"Talk to me."

"I am talking to you."

"…Ask me."

Fin

AN: Thank you for reading to the end! Please feel free to send through any requests / prompts / feedback. I also indulge in a harumichi tumblr habit – PM me if you want to connect there


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